Josep Maria Haro Abad

Josep Maria Haro, psychiatrist and Ph.D. in Public Health, is the Research and Teaching Director of Saint John of God Health Park in Barcelona, Spain and associate professor of medicine at the University of Barcelona.

After his medical studies, he was trained in Epidemiology and Public Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health (Baltimore, MD, USA). Later he got his specialization in psychiatry at the Clinic Hospital of Barcelona. During the past twenty-five years he has worked both in clinical medicine and in public health research and has published more than three hundred scientific papers.

His areas of investigation have been epidemiology of mental disorders and the analysis of treatment outcomes. As a researcher in epidemiology of mental disorders, he has conducted studies on the prevalence and impact of disorders in the general population and the treatment of mental disorders in primary care. His last studies focus on the determinants of healthy ageing, analyzing both the impact of physical and mental co-morbidity and the effect of societal and environmental aspects. In health outcomes, he has been interested in the consequences of mental disorders in patient functioning and quality of life, and the impact on society overall.
Dr. Haro is principal investigator of one of the groups of the CIBERSAM network. In 2011 he received the award of best researcher from the Spanish Society of Biological Psychiatry. He is currently the European coordinator of the EU funded project ATHLOS and was coordinator of the Roadmap for mental health and wellbeing research in Europe (ROAMER).