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Kawachi, Ichiro

Professor of Social Epidemiology
Chair, Department of Society, Human Development, and Health

Department of Society, Human Development, and Health

677 Huntington Avenue
Kresge Building 7th Floor
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
Phone: 617.432.3915

Executive Assistant:
Monika Szperka [email protected]

Research

Social Determinants of Health

My research interests span across a range of social determinants of population health and health disparities. My investigations encompass the macro-level determinants of population health (e.g. income inequality, social cohesion, and political participation), to the meso-level (neighborhood contextual influences), down to the individual-level (stress, and psychosocial risk factors for cardiovascular disease).  I was the co-editor, with Lisa Berkman, of the textbook on Social Epidemiology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).  

Income inequality and population health

For the past decade I have been conducting investigations on the damaging population health consequences of growing inequality, which is summarized in the books, The Health of Nations (New York: The New Press, 2002, with Bruce Kennedy), and Income Inequality and Health: A Reader (New York: The New Press, 1999, with Bruce Kennedy and Richard Wilkinson), as well as in the book I edited, Is Inequality Bad for Our Health? (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000, with Lisa Berkman and Daniel Kim).

Social capital and health

A second strand of my research has sought to establish the links between health and "social capital", defined as access to network-based resources such as trust, norms, and reciprocity exchanges.  This work has been summarized in a recently edited a textbook, Social Capital and Health (New York: Springer 2008, with Daniel Kim and S.V. Subramanian). My recent work on social capital (with Takeo Fujiwara) has sought to test the links with health status using panel designs (J Epidemiol Comm Health. 2008 Jul;62(7):627-33) and twin fixed effects (Am J Prev Med. 2008 Aug;35(2):139-44.

Neighborhood influences on health

With S.V. Subramanian and others, I am interested in approaches to examine neighborhood "contextual" influences on health outcomes, including obesity.  This work is summarized in the textbook, Neighborhoods and Health (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, with Lisa Berkman).

Global health

My research activities span across the globe, including collaborations with colleagues in Asia (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China), Latin America (Chile, Ecuador, Brazil), Europe (Hungary, Sweden, the Netherlands), and Australia/New Zealand.  My interests in global health are summarized in my textbook, Globalization and Health (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006, with Sarah Wamala).

Publications

 

Affiliation

Harvard University, School of Public Health

The overarching mission of the Harvard School of Public Health is to advance the public’s health through learning, discovery, and communication. To pursue this mission, the School produces knowledge through research, reproduces knowledge through higher education, and translates knowledge...

Co-authors

Glass, Roberta

Roberta J. Glass is a statistician at i3 Drug Safety. Previously, Roberta Glass was a research...

Hurtado, David

David Hurtado, ScD. Yerby Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health...

Kennedy, Bruce P.

Bruce P. Kennedy is a social epidemiologist, formerly at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Prothrow-Stith, Deborah

Deborah Prothrow-Stith is Adjunct Professor of the Practice of Public Health at the Department...

Subramanian S V

Associate Professor of Society, Human Development, and Health Department of Society, Human...

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