One of the founders of Prevention Research Center, Dr. Ames was Associate Director and Senior Scientist at the Prevention Research Center, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Professor in the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley and affiliate Professor in the Medical Anthropology Program, Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley.
She served as Principal Investigator for research grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, and the State of California, and as PI and program director on NIH-funded post-doctoral training programs in Health Services and Prevention Research Science.
A medical anthropologist, Dr. Ames was trained at the University of California San Francisco and Berkeley. Her primary research focus was the influence of cultural, social and physical environments on the etiology, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of alcohol and other drug-related problems. She has more than 100 peer-reviewed publications with results of her research on substance use problems in the context of the family and with occupational cultures to include the U.S. military, auto assembly plants, municipal employees, construction and restaurant workers, and young adults entering the work force, and other studies identifying new measures for indicators of alcohol problems among women, and most recently, barriers to PTSD treatment for soldiers returning from combat. Her work is known for its successful integration of survey, archival and ethnographic methods and the transference of science to public health policy and programming.
Dr. Ames’ articles are listed on PRC’s publications page.
