Population Wellness Lab
The Population Wellness Lab, led by Dr. Christy Denckla, studies how adversity, including trauma, loss, and bereavement, affects mental health, physical health, and well-being. We are driven by the ultimate question: how do people adapt and recover from these adverse events? What is the difference between normal grief and pathological grief? How does loss shape our understanding of the world and ourselves? Ultimately, we aim to prevent trauma exposure as well as the subsequent cascade of physical and mental adverse effects at the population health level.
677 Huntington Avenue
Kresge Building, Room 720 Boston, MA 02115
Training
Our professional and scholarly commitment to inclusive excellence is aligned with our collaborative science vision because teams comprised of novel perspectives tend to produce the highest impact health science. The Population Wellness Lab offers training through didactic coursework, hands on research experience, and mentorship by Dr. Christy Denckla and collaborators.
Dr. Christy Denckla teaches multiple courses across FAS and HSPH, including:
- MBB 980II: Grief, Loss, and Death: Integrating Clinical and Population Health Perspectives
- SBS 237: Grief, Loss, and Death: Population Mental Health Perspectives
- SBS 500: Developing a Research Protocol
The lab typically hosts a handful of paid interns each year. Interns can be Harvard students or external undergraduate or graduate students. To express interest in conducting an internship, please complete the following form.
Dr. Christy Denckla is a faculty member on the National Institute of Mental Health grant (2T32MH017119-39) in psychiatric epidemiology (PI: Karestan Koenen).
Dr. Christy Denckla is an advisor to students in the Department of Epidemiology and the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. For questions and for more information on applying to either department, please contact sbs@hsph.harvard.edu for the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences.