William K. Bleser

William K. Bleser, PhD, MSPH, is managing associate, payment reform and population health, at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University. His mixed methods work revolves around generating actionable, evidence-based, policy-relevant research on alternative payment models or risk-based contracts that improve quality of care for patients while reducing cost and improving care delivery flexibility for clinicians. He studies both widespread existing population health payment reforms (e.g., accountable care organizations) as well as new and emerging ways to expand value-based models to better address social needs and improve health equity (for example, through Medicaid reforms and expansions like North Carolina’s Healthy Opportunities Pilots). Dr. Bleser also has a secondary body of work studying vaccine policy and equity. Before coming to Duke, he worked at the Pennsylvania State University on grant-funded research studying inequities in preventive health services, evaluating national health quality improvement efforts, and achieving change to the patient-centered medical home delivery reform model. Dr. Bleser previously worked for the US Department of Health and Human Services on improving adult influenza vaccine coverage and better understanding rare adverse events to influenza vaccines. He earned his PhD from the Pennsylvania State University jointly in health policy and in demography, his master of science in public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in disease epidemiology and control, and his BS in neuroscience from the College of William and Mary.