John Packham, PhD
Dr. John Packham is the Director of Health Policy Research at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. He manages the Nevada Rural Hospital Flexibility Program, which is a statewide technical assistance center for Nevada rural and frontier hospitals administered by the Nevada Office of Rural Health based in the Center for Education and Health Services Outreach at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. He also coordinates health workforce research and related policy analysis undertaken by the School of Medicine’s Office of Health Professions Research and Policy.
Dr. Packham received his BA and MA degrees in sociology from the University of Oklahoma, and his PhD in sociology from Johns Hopkins University in 1992. He was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and the Örebro County Council, Örebro, Sweden in 1993. His areas of expertise include health workforce planning, health care and public health policy analysis, health services research, program evaluation, and health program administration.
Dr. Packham is the coauthor of numerous reports including “Physician Workforce in Nevada” (2009), Nevada Rural and Frontier Health Data Book – 2009 Edition, “The Impact of Hospitals and the Health Sector on the Nevada Economy” (2009),“2005 Survey of Licensed Registered Nurses in Nevada” (2005), “Health Care and Health Care Education Opportunities in Nevada” (2005), “Nursing Education and the Nursing Workforce in Nevada” (2001), and “Health Care Education in Nevada,” a report prepared for the 70th Nevada State Legislature (1999).
Dr. Packham is the recipient of the Nevada Public Health Association’s “Nevada Public Health Leader of the Year Award” (2009) and the Nevada Business Journal’s “Heroes of Healthcare” award for research and technology (2006). Dr. Packham is the Past-President of the Nevada Public Health Association and current writes for the Reno Gazette-Journal on public health issues facing Nevada.