Nancy Krieger is Professor of Social Epidemiology, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Director of the HSPH Interdisciplinary Concentration on Women, Gender, and Health. She has been a member of the School’s faculty since 1995.
Dr. Krieger is an internationally recognized social epidemiologist (PhD, Epidemiology, UC Berkeley, 1989), with a background in biochemistry, philosophy of science, and history of public health, plus 30+ years of activism involving social justice, science, and health. In 2004, she became an ISI highly cited scientist, a group comprising “less than one-half of one percent of all publishing researchers,” with her ranking reaffirmed in 2015, 2022, and 2023.
In 2013, Dr. Krieger received the Wade Hampton Frost Award from the Epidemiology Section of the American Public Health Association, and in 2015, she was awarded the American Cancer Society Clinical Research Professorship and re-awarded its renewal in 2020. In 2020, she was awarded the American College of Epidemiology’s “Outstanding Contributions to Epidemiology” award, and she and her team received the 2020 American Journal of Epidemiology “Paper of the Year” award for their study on historical redlining and cancer stage at diagnosis (the first ever study on this issue). In 2021, she was appointed as member of the UNESCO International Scientific Committee for the
Slave Route Project: Resistance, Liberty, Heritage. In 2023, she was awarded the Sedgwick Memorial Medal for Distinguished Service in Public Health by the American Public Health Association, its “oldest and most prestigious medal.”
Dr. Krieger's work addresses three topics: (1) conceptual frameworks to understand, analyze, and improve the people's health, including the ecosocial theory of disease distribution she first proposed in 1994 and its focus on embodiment and equity; (2) etiologic research on societal determinants of population health and health inequities; and (3) methodologic research on improving monitoring of health inequities. In April 2011, Dr. Krieger's pathbreaking book,
Epidemiology and the People's Health: Theory and Context, was published by Oxford University Press; she published the
thoroughly revised and updated second edition in 2024. This book presents the argument for why epidemiologic theory matters. Tracing the history and contours of diverse epidemiologic theories of disease distribution from ancient societies on through the development of - and debates within - contemporary epidemiology worldwide, it considers their implications for improving population health and promoting health equity.
In 2018, Dr. Krieger launched a new book series for Oxford University Press on “
small books, big ideas in population health.” Topics addressed include: “
Political Sociology and the People’s Health” (Beckfield, 2018); “
Climate Change and the People’s Health” (Friel, 2019); “Critical Epidemiology and The People’s Health” (Breilh, 2021); and “
Ecosocial Theory, Embodied Truths, and The People’s Health” (Krieger, 2021).
She is also editor of
Embodying Inequality: Epidemiologic Perspectives (Baywood Press, 2004) and co-editor, with Glen Margo, of
AIDS: The Politics of Survival (Baywood Publishers, 1994), and, with Elizabeth Fee, of
Women's Health, Politics, and Power: Essays on Sex/Gender, Medicine, and Public Health (Baywood Publishers, 1994). In 1994 she co-founded, and still chairs, the
Spirit of 1848 Caucus of the American Public Health Association, which is concerned with the links between social justice and public health.