Lisa Berkman, PhD

Biography

Lisa Berkman, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Population and Development Studies, is a social epidemiologist whose work focuses extensively on psychosocial influences on health outcomes. Her research has been oriented towards understanding social inequalities in health related to socioeconomic status, different racial and ethnic groups, and social networks, support and social isolation. The majority of her work is devoted to identifying the role of social networks and support in predicting declines in physical and cognitive functioning, onset of disease and mortality, especially related to cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disease. She has been an innovator in linking social experiences with physical and mental health outcomes and has edited (with Ichiro Kawachi) the first textbook on social epidemiology (Social Epidemiology, 2000). She is a member of theInstitute of Medicine and past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research.