Download as a PDFDavid R. Williams
Allen Harmsen, Sara Young, David Williams.

This presentation provides an overview of research on social justice and health. One important theme is the persistence of socioeconomic status (SES) and racial ethnic disparities across the continuum of health. Recent research has also situated these disparities within the context of the relatively poor ranking of health in the U.S. compared to other societies, and showed that they have profound economic costs for American society. Another important line of recent research documents the persistence of racism in U.S. society and the multiple ways in which racism has adverse consequences for health. There is also growing evidence that the social environment is a central determinant of health, and that interventions on upstream determinants can improve health and reduce inequities in health.

David R. Williams is the Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Professor of African and African American Studies and of Sociology at Harvard University. Currently, he directs the Lung Cancer Disparities Center at HSPH, one of 10 Centers for Population Health and Health Disparities funded by the National Institutes of Health. Previously, he was a faculty member at Yale University and the University of Michigan. Dr. Williams holds an MPH degree from Loma Linda University and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Williams is internationally recognized as a leading social scientist focused on social influences on health. His research has enhanced our understanding of the complex ways in which race, racial discrimination, socioeconomic status and religious involvement can affect physical and mental health. In 2001, he was elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2004, he received one of the inaugural Decade of Behavior Research Awards, and in 2007, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Williams has been involved in the development of health policy at the national level in the U.S. He has served on the Department of Health and Human Service National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics and on seven committees for the Institute of Medicine including the Committee that prepared the Unequal Treatment report. Dr. Williams has also played a visible, national leadership role in raising awareness levels of the problem of health disparities and identifying interventions to address them. From 2007 through December 2009, he served as the staff director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Commission to Build a Healthier America. This national, independent and nonpartisan health commission was focused on identifying evidence-based non-medical strategies that can improve the health of all Americans and reduce racial and socioeconomic gaps in health.

With funding from the National Institutes of Health and the sponsorship of the World Health Organization,Dr. Williams directed the South African Stress and Health Study, the first nationally representative study of the prevalence and correlates of psychiatric disorders in sub-Sahara Africa. This study assessed the effects of HIV/AIDS, exposure to racial discrimination and torture during apartheid, on the health of the South African population.

Dr. Williams has appeared on national television, including ABC's Evening News, CNN, PBS, C-SPAN and the Discovery Channel. His research has been featured or he has been quoted in the national print media including the New York Times, Time, Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Jet and USA Today. He was also a key scientific advisor to the award-winning PBS film series, Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?

 

The Café Scientifique was co-sponsored by Montana INBRE and Montana State University COBRE programs.