Dr. Lisa Berkman

Biography

Lisa Berkman is the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. She is an internationally recognized social epidemiologist whose work focuses extensively on how social policy influences health outcomes. Her research orients understanding on inequalities in health related to socioeconomic status, racial and ethnic groups, social networks, and support isolation. Currently, she is the principal investigator of the Health Aging Study in Africa: Longitudinal Study of INDEPTH Community South Africa (HAALSI), which studies the drivers and consequences of HIV and non-communicable diseases in an aging population in Agincourt, South Africa. Berkman has contributed significantly to the field with over 300 publications and was a co-editor of the impactful textbook 'Social Epidemiology' with Ichiro Kawachi, which released its edition in 2014. She has held various academic leadership roles, including chair of the Department of Society, Human Development and Health at Harvard, and has actively participated in significant studies such as the 1994 GAZEL study involving a large cohort of French employees.

Research Interests