David Bradford

W. David Bradford, Ph.D., is a health economist and the George D. Busbee Chair in Public Policy in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Georgia. Prior to joining UGA, he was the Director and founder of the Center for Health Economic and Policy Studies at the Medical University of South Carolina, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of New Hampshire. He has also been visiting (sabbatical) professor at Yale Medical School and the Talbott Visiting Professor in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia.

Dr. Bradford’s research ranges across diverse fields, including substance use policy, pharmaceutical policy (advertising, drug pricing, and off-label prescribing), housing instability, and the role that time and risk preferences play in individual decision making. Currently, a significant portion of his research efforts involves understanding the impact of cannabis and opioid policies on health behaviors and outcomes. In addition, he has active research projects with several coauthors investigating the interrelationship between landlord-tenant policies, eviction, and homelessness – and how those outcomes impact deaths of despair. Finally, Dr. Bradford regularly serves as an expert witness in cases involving the health care sector, frequently focused on the pharmaceutical and medical devices industries, which often involve issues surrounding false claims, the anti-kickback statute, and estimating or rebutting damages in civil cases.

Dr. Bradford serves or has served multiple editorial roles. Currently, he is Editor-in-Chief for Health Economics, and has been an Associate Editor for Implementation Research and Practice. He is serving as an elected Board Member of the American Society of Health Economists. He also chairs the oversight boards of the Southeastern Health Economics Study Group annual conference. In the past he has served two terms as a Board Member for the International Health Economics Association. Finally, Dr. Bradford frequently provides expert witness testimony in health care related litigation and has been a member of multiple National Institutes of Health study sections in permanent and ad hoc roles.