Dunn appointed to IOM committee on Social Security policies

Laura Dunn, MD, has been appointed as a member of the Institute of Medicine's Committee to Evaluate the Social Security Administration's (SSA) Capability Determination Process for Adult Beneficiaries. The committee, which recently held its first meeting in Washington DC, is charged with studying the SSA’s current policy and procedures for capability determinations for adult beneficiaries, comparing with SSA’s program with similar benefit programs, and providing recommendations to improve the accuracy and efficiency for future capability determinations.

Dunn is an internationally-recognized expert in the study of ethical issues in clinical research (e.g., informed consent, decision-making capacity, and influences on research participation). Her research has examined ethical issues in psychiatric research and in clinical research more generally, with a focus on potentially vulnerable individuals. Dunn’s work has included randomized trials of novel methods of enhancing the informed consent process for research and assessments of potential participants’ understanding of key aspects of research participation, and she has published extensively on empirical ethics issues in vulnerable populations.