Paul Sacco received his MSW from Arizona State University in 1995, and practiced for 10 years as a psychiatric social worker. In 2005, he returned to complete his PhD in Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the faculty of the School of Social Work in 2009.
His research focuses primarily on behavioral health and addictions with a focus on life course development. Specifically, he has conducted research on the epidemiology of alcohol use and pathological gambling among older adults with an emphasis on epidemiology and health services use. In addition to his substantive interests, he is focused on the application of latent variable modeling approaches to understanding developmental process in behavioral health and exploring heterogeneity in life course development.
Dr. Sacco combines his behavioral health research with an interest in the training of social work students in evidence-supported behavioral health interventions. He served as the Project Director of an SAMHSA-funded Screening and Brief Intervention and Referral for Treatment (SBIRT) Training program (2014-2017) and currently co-directs the BHWISE Fellows Program, a HRSA-funded workforce development project focused on integrated behavioral health training.
Dr. Sacco teaches in the foundation and clinical practice areas as well as in the PhD program. As an educator, he endeavors to support students in learning the latest from research while helping them to recognize the core elements of effective social work practice.