Ware, John E.

John E. Ware, Jr. is a pioneer in the area of quality-of-life assessment and an internationally recognized expert in the field. Ware is noted for being the principal developer of the Short Form 36 (SF-36) Health Survey, one of the most widely used quality-of-life assessment tools in healthcare research. Ware is the founder and president and chief scientific officer of Quality Metric, Inc., an Internet-based healthcare technology company that uses the latest innovations in measurement technology to monitor health outcomes of consumers. Ware is also executive director of the Health Assessment Laboratory and a research professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine. Ware received his bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology from Pepperdine University in California and completed his doctoral degree in educational measurement and statistics at Southern Illinois University in 1974. While working toward his doctorate, Ware became director of the Measuring Health Concepts Research Project at the University of Southern California School of Medicine and director of the Postgraduate Division in the Department of Psychiatry. In 1972, Ware was appointed assistant professor at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, and in 1975, he became a senior research psychologist at the RAND Corporation in the Behavioral Sciences Department and Health Sciences Program. Following this, Ware joined the faculty at Pepperdine University as an instructor and was an adjunct professor and research advisor for the Clinical Scholars Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, Schools of Medicine and Public Health. In 1988, Ware became senior scientist at the Health Institute at Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston, and eventually, he took on the role of director of the International Quality of Life Assessment Project at Tufts University.

As a result of a research program at the Health Institute of New England Medical Center, the Health Assessment Laboratory was founded in 1988 as a nonprofit organization, located in Waltham, Massachusetts, where Ware is the executive director. The Health Assessment Laboratory conducts basic research on patient-reported outcomes and works in close association with the Health Institute.

Ware was the principal investigator for the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS), which developed the SF-36 Health Survey as well as other widely used health assessment tools. The experience of the SF-36 Health Survey has been cited in nearly 7,500 publications and used in approximately 1,000 clinical studies, and it was judged to be the most widely evaluated patient-assessed health outcome measure.

Ware is a member of many advisory groups, including the Social Security Administration's Disability Evaluation Study, the Joint Commission's Council on Performance Measurement, and the National Committee for Quality Assurance's Technical Advisory Group. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine (IOM). In 2003, he received the [Page 1182]International Society for Quality of Life Research President's Award for his pioneering and tireless work in advancing the ability to assess health-related quality of life.

Ware has made transformative contributions to the field of health related to psychometric theory and improving the measurement of patient outcomes. He is currently developing computer software and Internet applications to assess risk and monitor the health outcomes of patients.

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