Brought to you by the Depression Is Real Coalition, The Down & Up Show is dedicated to the reality of depression. Each week our hosts will talk with some of the world's top experts on depression, as well as people who have been impacted by this illness. The reality of depression is that it is a debilitating and potentially deadly medical condition that affects more than 15 million Americans every year. The other reality of depression is that there is hope.

Ronald C. Kessler, Ph.D.

Ronald C. Kessler, Ph.D. is a Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School. His research deals broadly with the social determinants of mental health and illness as studied from an epidemiological perspective. He is the author of over 500 publications and the recipient of many awards for his research, including Senior Scientist and MERIT awards from the National Institute of Mental Health. He has been rated by ISI as the most widely cited researcher in the world in the field of psychiatry for each of the past nine years. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science. Kessler is the Principal Investigator of the U.S. National Comorbidity Survey, the first nationally representative survey of the prevalence and correlates of mental disorders in the US (www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/ncs). He is a Co-Director of the World Health Organization's World Mental Health Survey Initiative, a series of comparative community epidemiological surveys of the prevalence of mental disorders, patterns of help seeking for these disorders, and barriers to treatment for these disorders in 28 countries around the world (www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/wmh). In addition to his epidemiological studies, Kessler is involved in evaluating a number of innovative programs for the prevention and treatment of mental illness in high-risk segments of the population.