Marvin Swartz

Dr. Marvin Swartz serves as the lead of our Behavioral Research Team. His major research interest is in examining the effectiveness of services for severely mentally ill individuals, including factors that improve or impede good outcomes. His current research includes: the effectiveness of involuntary outpatient commitment, psychiatric advance directives, criminal justice outcomes for persons with mental illnesses, violence and mental illness and antipsychotic medications.

Marvin also served as member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Mandated Community Treatment. In this and related work they are examining the role legal tools such as Psychiatric Advance Directives may play in improving outcomes for persons with severe mental illness. In this regard, he served as Co-PI with Jeffrey Swanson of a NIMH study examining the effectiveness of Psychiatric Advance Directives and a MacArthur Foundation grant supporting their dissemination. They are also evaluating New York’s Assisted Outpatient Treatment Program (Kendra’s Law) and estimating the cost of criminal justice involvement in severely mentally ill individuals.

Marvin is also involved in clinical trials in schizophrenia and served as Co-PI of the NIMH funded Clinical Antipsychotics Trials of Intervention Effectiveness study investigating the role of antipsychotics in treatment outcomes in schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s Disease.

You can learn more about Marvin on his Duke Scholars page.