Mary Carter

Mary W. Carter, Ph.D., is an associate professor of gerontology in the Center on Aging and Department of Community Medicine at West Virginia University.  Dr. Carter received her doctorate degree in gerontology from the University of Massachusetts Boston and completed postdoctoral training sponsored by the National Institute on Aging with the Division of Health Services Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota’s school of Public Health.  Since 2005, Dr. Carter has held associate faculty positions with the WVU Regional Research Institute and the WVU Injury Control Research Center.  She currently serves as a member of the NIA Behavior and Social Science of Aging Review committee, a Review Board Member for American Journal of Health Behavior, and consults on a number of state, national and international efforts to improve healthcare quality and outcomes among older adults.
Dr. Carter’s work draws upon large administrative databases to investigate variations in healthcare use and costs, quality and outcomes among older adults, with a particular focus on regional and systemic determinants of variation.  Previous research efforts have focused on regional variations in nursing home hospitalization rates, ambulatory care-sensitive and highly discretionary hospitalizations among older adults as a potential marker of quality of care and systemic determinants of regional variations in the nursing home survey process.   Currently, Dr. Carter’s work focuses on the long-term consequences of injury among older adults, including unintentional injury and adverse medical events across a variety of healthcare settings.    Her work is supported by funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

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Email: mcarter@hsc.wvu.edu