Nicholas Christakis

Doctor, Educator/Teacher, Idea generator, Parent, Scientist, Student, Writer/Editor

Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH, is an internist and social scientist who conducts research on social factors that affect health, health care, and longevity. He is Professor of Medical Sociology in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School; Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School; Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences; and an Attending Physician (with an emphasis on palliative medicine) in the Department of Medicine at the Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is also the Master of Pforzheimer House in Harvard College. Dr. Christakis received his BS from Yale University in 1984, his MD from Harvard Medical School and his MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1989, and his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006. Dr. Christakis' current work is principally concerned with health and social networks. This work takes seriously the contention that because people are inter-connected, their health is inter-connected. This work explores two aspects of social networks: the process by which they form ("connection") and the way they operate to influence behavior ("contagion"). He explores the social, mathematical, and genetic underpinnings of social network structure and function. Related work examines the health benefits of marriage and the consequences of spousal illness and widowhood. Other ongoing investigations consider the effects of neighborhoods on people's health, the biodemographic determinants of longevity, and the genetic bases for human behaviors. Previously, his work examined the accuracy and role of prognosis in medicine and ways of improving end-of-life care. Along with his long-time collaborator, James H. Fowler, of the University of California, San Diego, Dr. Christakis has authored a general-audience book on social networks: Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, published in 2009.

Seeing new things. Learning new things. Teaching new things. Teaching old things. My connections.

People are connected, and so their health is connected.

epidemiology, medicine, Palliative medicine, Public Health, Public Policy, Social Network Analysis, Social Science

pausing.