Jessica (Jess) Sousa is a senior policy analyst at RAND and a licensed certified social worker in Massachusetts. Her work at RAND focuses on behavioral health care delivery, telehealth policy and implementation, and patient and service member experiences with behavioral health care and the use of digital health technologies. She has over a decade of experience conducting qualitative and mixed-methods research, using semi-structured interviews, surveys, and focus groups to examine the perspectives and experiences of patients, service members, veterans, and health care providers. She is also experienced in facilitating research advisory groups comprised of people with mental health and substance use conditions to inform study design, implementation, and interpretation. Over the course of her career in clinical trials and health policy research, Sousa has managed the operational and analytic components of numerous complex, multi-site research projects funded by federal and nonprofit sponsors. At RAND, she has served as project manager on several congressionally mandated studies and contributed to deliverables submitted to federal sponsors in support of their reports to Congress, including an evaluation of telementoring programs designed to expand the capacity of primary care providers in rural and underserved settings, an assessment of federal investments in health services and primary care research, and analyses of the effects of federal policy changes on health care market consolidation.
Sousa holds dual master's degrees in clinical social work and health policy and management from Boston University and a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.
M.S.W. in social work, Boston University; M.P.H. in health service management, Boston University; B.A. in psychology, University of Pennsylvania
