Walter C. Willett
Primary Faculty

Walter C. Willett

Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition

Nutrition

wwillett@hsph.harvard.edu

Other Positions

Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Epidemiology

Epidemiology

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health


Overview

Walter C. Willett, M.D., Dr. P.H., is Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Willett studied food science at Michigan State University, and graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School before obtaining a Masters and Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Willett has focused much of his work over the last 40 years on the development and evaluation of methods, using both questionnaire and biochemical approaches, to study the effects of diet on the occurrence of major diseases. He has applied these methods starting in 1980 in the Nurses' Health Studies I and II and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Together, these cohorts that include nearly 300,000 men and women with repeated dietary assessments, are providing the most detailed information on the long-term health consequences of food choices.

Dr. Willett has published over 2,000 original research papers and reviews, primarily on lifestyle risk factors for heart disease, cancer, and other conditions and has written the textbook, Nutritional Epidemiology, published by Oxford University Press, now in its third edition. He also has written four books for the general public. Dr. Willett is the most cited nutritionist internationally. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and the recipient of many national and international awards for his research.


Bibliography

Circulating vitamin D and breast cancer risk: an international pooling project of 17 cohorts.

Visvanathan K, Mondul AM, Zeleniuch-Jacquotte A, Wang M, Gail MH, Yaun SS, Weinstein SJ, McCullough ML, Eliassen AH, Cook NR, Agnoli C, Almquist M, Black A, Buring JE, Chen C, Chen Y, Clendenen T, Dossus L, Fedirko V, Gierach GL, Giovannucci EL, Goodman GE, Goodman MT, Guénel P, Hallmans G, Hankinson SE, Horst RL, Hou T, Huang WY, Jones ME, Joshu CE, Kaaks R, Krogh V, Kühn T, Kvaskoff M, Lee IM, Mahamat-Saleh Y, Malm J, Manjer J, Maskarinec G, Millen AE, Mukhtar TK, Neuhouser ML, Robsahm TE, Schoemaker MJ, Sieri S, Sund M, Swerdlow AJ, Thomson CA, Ursin G, Wactawski-Wende J, Wang Y, Wilkens LR, Wu Y, Zoltick E, Willett WC, Smith-Warner SA, Ziegler RG.

Eur J Epidemiol. 2023 Jan. 38(1):11-29. PMID: 36593337


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