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Maryland Population Research Center
2003-2004 Seminar Series

SPEAKER:	Nicholas Christakis M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H. Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School
TITLE:	"'Cascade' Effects with Respect to Health and Health Care in Social Networks"
DATE:	Fri. Feb 27, 2004
TIME:	3:30 pm *Note Special Time*
PLACE:	1101 Art-Sociology University of Maryland, College Park Campus
Nicholas Christakis, M.D., Ph.D., is an internist and sociologist who conducts research on the socio-cultural factors that affect the supply, demand, and outcomes of medical care. He is Professor of Medical Sociology in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School. He is also active as an Attending Physician in the Palliative Medicine Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, and an Affiliate of the Department of Sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University. He co-directs the Robert Wood Johnson Scholars in Health Policy program at Harvard. Dr. Christakis' past work has examined the accuracy and role of prognosis in medicine, ways of improving end-of-life care, factors associated with hospice use, and the impact of hospice care on the health of bereaved spouses. His book on prognosis, Death Foretold: Prophecy and Prognosis in Medical Care, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1999 and has been broadly reviewed. Currently, he is principally concerned with health and social networks, and specifically with how ill health, health risks, and death in one person can have like consequences for others in a person's social network. Some current work is focused on the health benefits of marriage and on how ill health in one spouse can have cascading effects on the other spouse. It seems likely that improving the health of one partner in a marriage can have meaningful effects on the health of the other, and that both parties would value this - in a way that influences health policy.

Wine & Cheese reception to follow.

For the complete seminar series schedule, please refer to http://www.popcenter.umd.edu/events/spring2004.shtml