Faculty & Staff

Maxim Polonsky

Maxim Polonsky
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Areas of Expertise

Marketing, Consumer Behavior, Advertising, Business Research, Decision Sciences, Program Evaluation

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Dr. Maxim Polonsky is an interdisciplinary researcher at the interface of marketing, analytics, decision science, and public health. Prior to joining KGI in 2022, Maxim was a research scientist at Yale School of Medicine, leveraging marketing strategies and consumer behavior insights to advance evidence-based approaches in public health policy and practice.

Maxim completed his PhD in Marketing at the University of Connecticut School of Business, where he was honored as an AMA-Sheth Doctoral Consortium Fellow and received the Outstanding PhD Student Scholar Award.

Maxim went on to complete postdoctoral training in Decision and Implementation Sciences at Yale School of Medicine and was awarded the NIH Fogarty Global Health Equity Fellowship.

Dr. Polonsky’s research and consulting bridges marketing strategy and public health, guiding biotech companies and informing health interventions design and policy implementation.

Dr. Polonsky's graduate-level teaching portfolio includes business decision analysis, business research design and analytics, marketing management, marketing research, and marketing analytics. As a passionate educator, Dr. Polonsky views his interaction with students as essential to being a productive researcher, an engaged colleague, and an active and informed citizen.

  1. Buono, Frank D, Maxim Polonsky, Matthew E. Sprong, Allison Aviles, and Christopher J. Cutter (2023) "Feasibility of a remotely monitored blood alcohol concentration device to facilitate treatment motivation." Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports, 9.
  2. Buono, Frank, Maxim Polonsky, Asher Marks, Kaitlyn Larkin, and Matthew Sprong (2023), "Work readiness and barriers to employment during COVID-19 for individuals with neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1)," Work (Preprint): 1-9.
  3. Bromberg, Daniel J., Samy J. Galvez de Leon, Taylor Litz, Lyu Azbel, Maxim Polonsky, Sergii Dvoriak, Nataliia Saichuk, Faye Taxman, and Frederick L. Altice (2023), "Aligning public health and public safety: Probation as a touchpoint to identify and link patients with opioid use disorder to opioid agonist treatment," PLOS Global Public Health 3,11.
  4. Sprong, Matthew, Andres Chamarro, Maxim Polonsky, Ashley Pechek, Cindy Pilcher, Mark Griffiths, and Frank D. Buono (2022), "The Spanish Version of the Video Game Functional Assessment-Revised." Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.
  5. Dorgay, Coriann, Daniel Bromberg, Svetlana Doltu, Taylor Litz, Samy Galvez, Maxim Polonsky, Sergey Dvoryak, and Frederick L. Altice (2022), "A pilot implementation study to scale-up methadone in incarcerated persons with opioid use disorder and retain them on treatment after release in Moldova," International Journal of Drug Policy, 104.
  6. O'Hara, George, Amanda Liberman, Maxim Polonsky, Lyuba Azbel, Ruthanne Marcus, Svetlana Doltu, Sergiu Cugut, Frederick Altice (2022), "Multi-level Implementation Factors that Influence Scale-up of Methadone Maintenance Treatment in Moldovan Prisons: A Qualitative Study," Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 136, 108660.
  7. Polonsky, Maxim (2021),"Brief Intervention For Changing Negative Attitudes Toward Opioid Agonist Treatment Within Criminal Justice System: Results From a Pilot Study in Ukraine.", in Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 49, eds. Tonya Williams Bradford, Anat Keinan, and Matthew Matthew Thomson, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 933-933.
  8. Norberg, Patricia, and Maxim Polonsky (2021), “Helping Others Help Me: The Impact of Disaster Response on Military Veteran Well-being,” in 2021 AMA Summer Academic Conference Proceedings, Vol. 32, American Marketing Association, 60-62.
  9. Polonsky, Maxim, Lyuba Azbel, Jeffrey A Wickersham, Ruthanne Marcus, Svetlana Doltu, Evgeny Grishaev, Sergii Dvoriak, Frederick L Altice (2016), “Accessing Methadone within Prison: Prejudice and Myths Amplified by Peers,” International Journal of Drug Policy, 29, 91-95.
  10. Polonsky, Maxim, Lyuba Azbel, Jeffrey A Wickersham, Faye S Taxman, Evgeny Grishaev, Sergii Dvoriak, Frederick L Altice (2015), “Challenges to Implementing Opioid Substitution Therapy in Ukrainian Prisons: Personnel Attitudes toward Addiction, Treatment, and People with HIV/AIDS,” Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 148, 47-55.

Dr. Polonsky currently investigates marketing communication strategies in pharmaceutical marketing and evaluates how they align with advertising effectiveness principles and regulatory guidelines, as summarized in a brief description of his working papers below:

Risk Communication in Direct-To-Consumer Prescription Drug Video Ads: A Content Analysis (with KGI Alumni Vahe Akopyan, Andrew Jones, and Mayur Upparapalli).

This research analyzes the quantity and quality of risk information in a comprehensive sample of DTC ads aired in the U.S. over the course of five years. Research findings offer valuable insights into the shortcomings of current risk communication strategies in pharmaceutical advertising and benefit advertisers, consumers, and government regulators by highlighting areas for improvement in risk communication within pharmaceutical marketing.

Price Salience In Direct-To-Consumer Pharmaceutical Television Advertising: A Content Analysis And Google Trends Interest (with Andrew Parker)

Despite the FDA’s initiative to quantitatively communicate product benefits to consumers, there are no current regulations or guidelines for price and financial communication in direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical ads. This study analyzes how different types of financial information convey value to consumers by examining a comprehensive sample of 127 prescription drug video ads for 101 unique products aired in the United States from January 2020 to March 2024. The research explores the quantity and nature of price communication and uses Google Trends data to investigate the link between price communication in DTC pharmaceutical advertising and consumer interest in advertised products.