The Department of Health Care Policy mourns the loss of Alan M. Zaslavsky, Daniel C. Tosteson Professor Emeritus of Health Care Policy (Statistics) at Harvard Medical School, who died on November 1, 2026. A member of the HCP faculty for nearly three decades, Alan was a statistician of rare breadth whose methods shaped how the nation counts its population and how patients' experiences of care are measured and compared. He became emeritus earlier this year.

Education and career

Alan received an AB in government from Harvard College in 1969, a master's degree in mathematics from Northeastern University, and a PhD in applied mathematics, specializing in statistics, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After working as a statistical consultant in the Department of Anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital, he joined the faculty of the Harvard Department of Statistics in 1990.

In the mid-1990s Alan moved to the Department of Health Care Policy, first as associate professor of statistics and later as professor of health care policy (statistics). He remained affiliated faculty in the Department of Statistics from 2006 onward, and in 2018 he was named the Daniel C. Tosteson Professor of Health Care Policy.

His science

Alan's research spanned survey and census methodology, small-area estimation, hierarchical modeling, missing data, and applied Bayesian methods. He brought these tools to bear on some of the most consequential measurement problems in public life.

Census methodology. Alan's early work addressed the estimation and adjustment of undercount in the decennial census. He developed methods for representing local-area adjustments by reweighting households and for combining census, dual-system, and evaluation data to estimate population shares. These ideas were ahead of their time, and they continue to inform the U.S. Census Bureau's work on coverage measurement today.

Health care quality measurement. Alan was a central figure in the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) program, which collects patients' reports on their health plans, hospitals, and physicians. He helped develop the survey instruments, the case-mix adjustment methods that allow fair comparisons across plans and providers, and the approaches used to report results to consumers and purchasers. He applied this work to comparisons of traditional Medicare, Medicare Advantage, and accountable care organizations, and to the measurement of racial and ethnic disparities in care.

Psychiatric epidemiology. In a long collaboration with Ronald C. Kessler, Alan led statistical analysis for the World Mental Health Surveys and the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (Army STARRS).

Service and honors

Alan served on many panels of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. He was a member of the Committee on National Statistics from 2006 to 2012 and chaired its panel on the American Community Survey, which reported in 2015.

He was a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, and a National Associate of the National Academy of Sciences. His honors include:

  • Frederick Mosteller Statistician of the Year Award, Boston Chapter of the ASA (2002)
  • Gertrude M. Cox Award for Contributions to Statistical Practice (2004)
  • E. K. Foreman Lecturer, Australian Statistics Conference (2010)
  • Long-Term Excellence Award, ASA Health Policy Statistics Section (2010)
  • A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award, Harvard Medical School (2015)

Mentor and colleague

Alan mentored generations of statisticians and health services researchers, many of whom now lead departments and research programs of their own. Former students and colleagues remember him as a fountain of wisdom: generous with ideas, unfailingly kind, and able to offer an offhand insight that would shape someone's work for years.

At HCP, colleagues will remember his warmth, his ready smile, and his habit of stopping for a real conversation in the hallway. He helped create the intellectual vibrancy and sense of community that define the department at its best. Earlier this year, colleagues, friends, and family gathered to celebrate his retirement and a career that changed how we understand data, evaluate care, and improve health systems for patients.

Alan is survived by his wife, Noel Jette; his daughter, Clara Zaslavsky Correia; and his grandchildren. Information about memorial plans will be shared here when available. We extend our deepest sympathy to Alan's family, and to his many students, collaborators, and friends.