Areas of Research

The Harvard Chan School’s Cancer Epidemiology program is a leader in providing students with a multidisciplinary academic, research, and applied program.

Cardiovascular Epidemiology promotes and advances research collaboration and discussion among investigators with expertise in cardiovascular disease research.

The Clinical Epidemiology program at the Harvard Chan School, one of the department’s largest areas, applies epidemiological principles and methods to enhance disease diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and prevention in clinical settings.

The Environmental and Occupational Epidemiology program is multidisciplinary, with the aim to train students and fellows in state-of-the-science methodologies in environmental health, biostatistics and epidemiology.

Epidemiology of Aging focuses on population aging and age-related diseases and health conditions in older adults, with the goal of understanding their causes and burdens, developing preventive strategies, improving health care for older adults, and promoting healthy aging.

The Epidemiologic Methods area trains students in developing, applying, and justifying classical and new epidemiologic methods for study design, data analysis, and interpretation.

The Genetic Epidemiology and Statistical Genetics program focuses on uncovering the genetic and molecular mechanisms of complex diseases—especially cancer—to enhance diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and prevention.

Infectious disease epidemiology provides a rare opportunity for students to obtain rigorous training both in traditional methods for epidemiologic studies and in mathematical modeling and other approaches to studying transmission mechanisms.

The Neuroepidemiology program at the Harvard Chan School provides comprehensive training and research opportunities through a dedicated course covering the causes of neurological diseases, epidemiological study challenges, and clinical perspectives.

Through courses in the Departments of Epidemiology and Nutrition, students in this area receive rigorous training in epidemiology, biostatistics, and the biological aspects of nutrition.

The Pharmacoepidemiology program’s mission is to equip the next generation of investigators with the expertise needed to evaluate the safety, effectiveness, and use of drugs, biologics, and medical devices.

Psychiatric Epidemiology at the Harvard Chan School explores the causes of mental disorders by identifying risk factors such as genetics, early life trauma, poverty, substance abuse, and social stressors.

Reproductive and Perinatal Epidemiology (RPE) focuses on the determinants of health throughout the lifecourse, including those related to reproductive health, the perinatal period, childhood, and adolescence/young adulthood.