Ichiro Kawachi MD, PhD, MB.ChB

Ichiro Kawachi, MB.Ch.B., Ph.D., is John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb professor of social epidemiology, and chair of the Social & Behavioral Sciences Department at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Kawachi received both his medical degree and Ph.D. (in epidemiology) from the University of Otago, New Zealand. He has taught at the Harvard School of Public Health since 1992. Kawachi is the co-editor (with Lisa Berkman) of the first textbook on social epidemiology, published by Oxford University Press in 2000 (new & revised edition published in 2014). His other books include “Neighborhoods and Health” (Oxford University Press, 2003); “Globalization and Health” (Oxford University Press, 2006); “Social Capital and Health” (Springer, 2008); the “Oxford Handbook of Public Health Practice” co-edited with Charles Guest and others (Oxford University Press, 2013), and “Behavioral Economics and Public Health” co-edited with Christina Roberto (Oxford University Press, 2015). His current project is focused on the longitudinal impacts of community social cohesion/social capital on functional recovery after the March 11, 2011, great eastern Japan earthquake and tsunami.

In 2013, he launched a massive, open online course (MOOC) through HarvardX called “Health and Society” (PHx 201), in which 32,000 participants registered from throughout the world. Kawachi is the co-editor-in-chief (with S.V. Subramanian) of the international journal Social Science & Medicine. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.