Alan B. Cohen

Alan B. Cohen (he/him/his) is editor of The Milbank Quarterly. He was formerly a research professor in the Markets, Public Policy, and Law Department of the Questrom School of Business and professor of health law, policy, and management in the Boston University School of Public Health.

Cohen was the national program director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research Program from 2013 to 2018, and also directed the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program from 1992 to 2016. At Boston University since 1994, he directed the Questrom School’s Health Care MBA Program for nine years (1994-2003) and the Boston University Health Policy Institute for 10 years (2003-2013). His current research interests include: national health policy and health system reform, comparative health care systems, and evaluation of quality improvement initiatives.

Earlier in his career, Cohen held faculty positions at Johns Hopkins University and Brandeis University, and spent eight years at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, serving as vice president for research and evaluation for five years.

Cohen is principal author of Technology in American Health Care: Policy Directions for Effective Evaluation and Management (Michigan, 2004); co-editor of Medicare and Medicaid at 50: America’s Entitlement Programs in the Age of Affordable Care (Oxford, 2015); and co-editor of “The Politics and Challenges of Achieving Health Equity,” a special issue of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law (Duke, 2017).

Cohen is an elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and previously served on the editorial boards of Health Affairs, Inquiry, and the Journal of Health Organization and Management. He received his BA in psychology from the University of Rochester, and his MS and ScD in health policy and management from the Harvard School of Public Health.