Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies


The Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies is an interdisciplinary center at Harvard University, affiliated with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The Center houses several post-doctoral programs, including the David E. Bell Fellowship, Sloan Fellowship on Aging and Work, and previously the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars program.

History

The Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies was founded in 1964 by the Harvard School of Public Health under the direction of Dean Jack Snyder and director Roger Revelle with a mandate to address issues of population control. Over the years, the Center’s intellectual concerns have evolved, in broad strokes by decades, to address the following themes:
As a celebration of its 50th anniversary, the Center for Population and Development Studies honored several individuals who played important roles in the development of the Center, including:
In addition, the Center hosted a 50th anniversary symposium entitled "Reimagining Societies in the Face of Demographic Change," which concerned recent demographic challenges faced by communities in the 21st century, including a rapidly aging global population, women's health and declining fertility, and initiatives the Center for Population and Development Studies is pursuing to help address these challenges. Some of the keynote speakers at the symposium included:
Harvard School of Public Health

Current director

Social epidemiologist Lisa Berkman was appointed director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies by Harvard Provost Steven E. Hyman in October 2007. Berkman is the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy, Epidemiology, and Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She was chair of the School’s Department of Society, Human Development and Health from 1995 – 2008. Recognized for her groundbreaking work in the field of social epidemiology, she is noted for identifying the effects of social networks on mortality risks that helped define the field in the late 1970s. Berkman also broadened the field with her investigations of how social conditions related to inequality, race, ethnicity, and social isolation influence health and aging.
Before coming to the Harvard Chan School in 1995 to head what was formerly the Department of Health and Social Behavior, Berkman was head of the department of chronic disease epidemiology at Yale School of Medicine.
A graduate of Northwestern University, Berkman received her master’s and doctorate in epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley. She joined the Yale faculty in 1979 as an assistant professor.
She is currently president of the Association of Population Centers, a member of the Institute of Medicine, and serves as chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. She is a past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research.

Previous directors

Current work

Over the past 50 years, the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies has shifted in its concerns about overpopulation and has expanded its focus to examine relevant questions involving demographic shifts, resources, health, and the environment. The Center continues to rely strongly on a robust cadre of multi-disciplinary faculty to advance the field of population science. Although it covers an array of topics, the Center addresses some of the world’s leading population and demographic challenges by focusing on the following five research focal areas
Current major projects of the Center include: