Health Policy Researcher
We must seek to provide interventions earlier on in the disease process, which provides an opportunity to better support people living with dementia as well as their family care partners.
Walter is a health policy researcher focused on developing strategies to reduce the economic burden of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia through public policy interventions that better support individuals, family care partners, and the public programs that fund care.
His grandmother
Building partnerships between policy and research
To reduce the negative impacts of dementia, we must seek to provide interventions earlier on in the disease process, which provides an opportunity to better support people living with dementia as well as their family care partners.
Walter's work seeks to reduce the negative financial impacts of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias on individuals, families, and the public programs that provide dementia care and support and improve dementia policy at a national and international level.
As an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health, Walter has complemented and enhanced his background in health policy by increasing his understanding of Alzheimer's disease and other cognitive disorders and by developing new skills in health services research.
Fifty percent of all people living with dementia in the United States may never receive a formal diagnosis; this has multiple negative downstream impacts on people living with dementia and their family care partners and undermines efforts to provide care.
Walter Dawson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine and faculty at the Portland State University Institute on Aging. He received a DPhil in Social Policy from the University of Oxford and has worked extensively in public policy at both the state and national level in the United States.
Fulbright Scholar
Walter
a Note