Center for Health and Wellbeing

The Center for Health and Wellbeing (CHW) fosters research and teaching on the multiple aspects of health and wellbeing in both developed and developing countries. The center’s goals are to understand the determinants of health and wellbeing and the role that public policy plays in shaping the quality of people’s lives, and to educate undergraduates and graduate students who aspire to careers in health and health policy.

CHW leads two educational programs. The Program in Global Health and Health Policy (GHP) is an interdepartmental program in which undergraduates can study the determinants, consequences, and patterns of disease across societies; the role of medical technologies and interventions in health improvements; and the economic, political, and social factors that shape domestic and global public health. The Graduate Certificate in Health and Health Policy trains graduate students for careers in health-related areas in the public and not-for-profit sectors. The program is designed for students with domestic and international health interests. Students in the program take core courses in health policy and epidemiology, as well as courses in their specialized areas of interest.

CHW supports research on a wide range of topics. It is home to a Center for the Demography of Aging and a Roybal Center, both funded by the National Institute of Aging (National Institutes of Health), and manages external research grants for its faculty associates. It oversees Princeton’s Health Grand Challenges Initiative, which supports faculty/student research projects that aim to identify new methods to prevent, detect, and treat infectious diseases; to provide tools to understand the spread of disease; and to develop strategies for reducing their social and economic costs. Health Grand Challenges projects are being led by faculty from the natural sciences, engineering and the social sciences, and engage students from numerous departments.

CHW is part of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. It was founded in 2000 by Professor Christina Paxson, now Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School. Professor Anne Case is acting as the interim Director of the Center, and Kristina Graff is the Center’s Associate Director. Professors Anne Case, Joao Biehl, Angus Deaton, and Bryan Grenfell make up its Executive Committee. The faculty associates of CHW come from a diverse set of disciplinary backgrounds, including anthropology, demography, economics, history, molecular biology, neuroscience, psychology, and sociology. CHW is located in Wallace Hall, the building that also houses the Office of Population Research, the Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, and the Research Program in Development Studies (RPDS).