Kermit Crawford to Serve on Board of Scientific Counselors for NCIPC

Kermit Anthony Crawford, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry, was selected by former Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Sylvia M. Burwell, to serve on the Board of Scientific Counselors, for the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Crawford is one of 18 members on the Board who will provide advice to the Secretary of HHS, the director of the CDC, and the director of the NCIPC, regarding surveillance, basic epidemiological research, intervention research and implementation, dissemination and evaluation of promising and evidence based strategies for the prevention and control of injury and violence. In addition, he will help make recommendations regarding policies, strategies, objectives and priorities and review progress toward injury and violence prevention and control.

A clinical psychologist at Boston Medical Center, Crawford is also executive director of the Massachusetts Marathon Bombing Victims/Survivors Resiliency Center and Director of the Center for Multicultural Mental Health. He has facilitated and provided disaster behavioral health response training across the nation on behalf of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to health responders in Mississippi, in Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Haiti Earthquake, the Tōhoku Region Tsunami, Earthquake and Nuclear Plant explosion.

Crawford has expertise in mental health, trauma, psychology training, substance abuse, workforce development and extensive experience in disaster behavioral health, mental health policy and mental health training. He has been principal investigator for several state and federal research and training grants and has authored numerous publications including a book chapter on the culturally competent practice of disaster behavioral health services.

Crawford is recipient of the Commissioner’s Excellence Award (Massachusetts Department of Mental Health), the Excellence in Diversity Training Award from the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC), the American Psychological Association’s- Minority Fellowship Program’s James Jones Lifetime Achievement Award, and several service awards and recognitions.  For his behavioral health work in the aftermath of disaster, he was recognized by the American Psychological Association’s (APA) monthly publication, The Monitor on Psychology.

In addition to his doctorate from Boston College, he is the recipient of an honorary doctoral degree of humane letters from William James College.  He has made featured presentations on evidence-based culturally competent practices in mental health at the Legislative Breakfast of the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses, the National Mental Health Association and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, the American Psychological Association and other national organizations.

He has served on several national behavioral health advisory committees including the American Psychological Association’s Clinical Treatment Guidelines Steering Committee and the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Developing Evidence-Based Standards for Psychosocial Interventions for Mental Disorders.