Robert Haley, M.D.

Robert W. Haley, M.D., is Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of the Division of Epidemiology in the Internal Medicine Department at UT Southwestern Medical Center and holder of the U.S. Armed Forces Veterans Distinguished Chair for Medical Research Honoring America's Gulf War Veterans.

He received his B.A. degree in Philosophy and Social Sciences from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he served as instructor in Philosophy for a year. He received his M.D. degree from UT Southwestern Medical School at Dallas and served an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.

He spent 10 years (1973-1983) at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), serving as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Public Health Service. At CDC he served as an epidemic investigator in the Epidemic Intelligence Service, a resident in Preventive Medicine, Director of the Hospital Infections Program, and Director of the nationwide Study on the Efficacy of Nosocomial Infection Control (SENIC Project), a nationwide study to identify methods of controlling hospital-acquired infections. He achieved the rank of O-6 and received the U.S. Public Health Service Commendation Medal for his research contributions while at the CDC.

Returning to Dallas in 1983, Dr. Haley founded the Division of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine. He directs courses in clinical epidemiology, biostatistics, computing, and disease prevention for medical students and practicing physicians; teaches research design in the University's Research Methods course for graduate students and junior faculty; and lectures widely on disease epidemiology and prevention.

He has been an attending physician on the internal medicine services at the Dallas Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Parkland Memorial Hospital and has served on the infection control committees of Parkland and Zale Lipshy University Hospital.

He chaired the Infection Control Indicators Task Force of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and has been a member of the U.S. Public Health Service's National Advisory Committee on Hospital Infection Control Practices. He is certified as a specialist by the American Board of Public Health and General Preventive Medicine, is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and of the American College of Epidemiology, and served as a senior editor of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Dr. Haley has conducted extensive research on the epidemiology and prevention of hospital-acquired (nosocomial) infections to improve the quality of hospital care and, more recently, the Gulf War illness. He has published over 150 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Topics of particular interest have been nationwide research studies on the efficacy of hospital infection control programs, multivariate intrinsic risk indexes for use in comparing hospitals' infection rates.

Medical School	UT Southwestern Medical Center (1971)
Internship/Residency	Parkland Health and Hospital System (1973), Internal Medicine
Fellowship	Centers for Disease Control (1975), Preventive Medicine
Residency	Centers for Disease Control (1976), Preventive Medicine

• Primary Care - General Internal Medicine

• Primary Interests
• Internal Medicine

• Epidemiology and prevention of hospital-acquired infections
• Epidemiology and prevention of West Nile Virus epidemics
• Neuroscience and epidemiologic investigations of Gulf War ilness

Featured Publications

Cholinergic autonomic dysfunction in veterans with gulf war illness: confirmation in a population-based sample.

Haley RW, Charuvastra E, Shell WE, Buhner DM, Marshall WW, Biggs MM, Hopkins SC, Wolfe GI, Vernino S JAMA Neurol 2013 Feb 70 2 191-200

Epidemiologic Evidence of Health Effects from Long-Distance Transit of Chemical Weapons Fallout from Bombing Early in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Haley RW, Tuite JJ Neuroepidemiology 2012 Dec 40 3 178-189

Meteorological and Intelligence Evidence of Long-Distance Transit of Chemical Weapons Fallout from Bombing Early in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Tuite JJ, Haley RW Neuroepidemiology 2012 Dec 40 3 160-177

Controlling urban epidemics of West Nile virus infection.

Haley RW JAMA 2012 Oct 308 13 1325-6

Validation of a research case definition of Gulf War illness in the 1991 US military population.

Iannacchione VG, Dever JA, Bann CM, Considine KA, Creel D, Carson CP, Best H, Haley RW Neuroepidemiology 2011 37 2 129-40

Abnormal brain response to cholinergic challenge in chronic encephalopathy from the 1991 Gulf War

Haley RW, Spence JS, Carmack PS, Gunst RF, Schucany WR, Petty F, Devous MD Sr, Bonte FJ, Trivedi MH. Psychiatry Research Neuroimaging 2008 (in press)

Increasing the power of group comparisons in SPECT brain imaging through spatial modeling of intervoxel correlations.

Spence JS, Carmack PS, Gunst RF, Schucany WR, Woodward WA, Haley RW. JASA Journal of the American Statistical Association 2007 478 464-473

A Population-Based Probability Sample for the Multidisciplinary Study of Ethnic Disparities in Cardiovascular Disease: Recruitment and Validation in the Dallas Heart Study

Victor RG, Haley RW, Willett D, Peshock RG, Vaeth PC, Leonard D, Basit M, Cooper RS, Iannacchione VG, Visscher W, Staaf J, Hobbs HH for the Dallas Heart Study Investigators American Journal of Cardiology 2004 93 1473-1480

Blunted circadian variation in autonomic regulation of sinus node function in veterans with Gulf War syndrome

Haley RW, Vongpatanasin W, Wolfe GI, Bryan WW, Armitage R, Hoffmann RF, Callahan TS, Charuvastra E, Shell WE, Marshall WW, Victor RG American Journal of Medicine 2004 117 469-478

Excess incidence of ALS in young Gulf War veterans

Haley RW Neurology 2003 60 750-756

• Association of American Physicians
  A society for the advancement of scientific and practical medicine (2004)
• Distinguished Alumni Award
  Southern Methodist University (2000)
• Listed in The Best Doctors in America
  Recognition based on a national poll of physicians (1994)
• Commissioned Officer Commendation Medal
  U.S. PHS award for research accomplishments at CDC (1976)
• Alpha Omega Alpha
  A national medical honor society (1971)

• Fellow, American College of Epidemiology; Fellow, American College of Physicians
• Member of the House of Delegates, Texas Medical Association
• Past President, Member of the Board of Directors, Dallas County Medical Society
• Past President, Texas Club of Internists
• Society for Epidemiologic Research ; Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America