William Kerr, PhD

William C. Kerr, Ph.D., is a senior scientist at the Alcohol Research Group, Public Health Institute, and is Director of ARG’s National Alcohol Research Center focused on the epidemiology of alcohol problems and alcohol-related disparities. Dr. Kerr received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California-Davis. Since joining the Alcohol Research Group in 2001 Dr. Kerr has pursued research in the areas of alcohol policy, measurement methodology, trends in US alcohol consumption and relationships between alcohol use patterns and health outcomes. He is currently leading an NIH R01 projects evaluating the legalization of cannabis in Washington. Recent projects include analyses of inter-relationships between alcohol consumption patterns and health problems in a life-course perspective and health disparities related to alcohol. He is also involved in projects addressing alcohol’s harm’s from other use, evaluating impacts of policies targeting drinking during pregnancy, estimating disparities in alcohol policy responsiveness, disentangling economic influences on alcohol-related suicide risk and building agent-based simulation models of population alcohol use over the lifecourse for policy testing.