Alan Jette

Dr. Jette’s research interests include late-life exercise, evaluation of rehabilitation treatment outcomes, and the measurement, epidemiology, and prevention of disability. Dr. Jette is an international expert in the development and dissemination of contemporary outcome measurement instruments to evaluate health care quality and outcomes. He has published over 180 peer reviewed articles on these topics. Dr. Jette currently directs the project entitled, “Use of Computer Adaptive Testing to Assist with theSocial Security Work Disability Determination Process”. He and his collaborators in the Department of Rehabilitation at the NIH Clinical Center are assisting the Social Security Administration to improve their work disability determination process by analyzing existing social security datasets and developing new measures to be used within the process. Throughout his 30+ year research career, Dr. Jette has received consistent research funding from numerous NIH Institutes, the NIDRR, CDC, CMS, SSA, as well as from several foundations and private corporations. Currently, he directs the Boston Rehabilitation Outcome Measurement Center funded by NCMRR/NIH, serves on the Executive Committee of the Boston Claude Pepper Older Americans Independence Center funded by NIA/NIH, and is Co-Project Director of the New England Regional Spinal Cord Injury Center, funded by NIDRR. For 10 years he directed the BU Post Doctoral Fellowship Program in Outcomes Research funded by NIDRR and from 1996-2004 he served as Dean of Boston University’s Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences. At a national level, in 1990, Dr. Jette served as Co-Chair of the Panel on Assessment & Epidemiology on the Hunt Valley Task Force on Medical Rehabilitation which was instrumental in founding the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research within NIH. From 1998-2002, Dr. Jette was a Member of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee to Review SSA’s Disability Decision Process. From 2004-2008 Dr. Jette served as a member of the National Advisory Board for the NCMRR/NIH. From 2005- 2007, Dr.Jette chaired the Institute of Medicine’s study and co-edited the report, The Future of Disability in America which highlights disability priorities for the nation. From 2010 -2011, he served on the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council’s Panel that conducted an External Evaluation of NIDRR’s Research Programs. He currently serves on the NIH Blue Ribbon Panel that is evaluating rehabilitation research funding within the NIH. In the international area, Dr. Jette served as a member of the International Advisory Panel on the evaluation of Swedish research on disability, Swedish Council for Social Research (2000-2001) was an International Review Panel Member, Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (2006-2007), and in 2010 was a Member, Research Review Committee, The Academy of Finland Research Council. He received a BS in Physical Therapy from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1973 and a MPH (1975) and Ph.D. (1979) in Public Health from the University of Michigan.