David R. Williams, PhD, MPH

Dr. David R. Williams is the Florence and Laura Norman Professor of Public Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is also a Professor of African and African American Studies and Sociology at Harvard University. Previously, he served on the faculty of Yale University and the University of Michigan.

He is an internationally recognized authority on social influences on health. He has been invited to keynote scientific conferences in Europe, Africa, Australia, the Middle East, South America, the Caribbean and across the U.S. and Canada. The author of more than 500 scientific papers, his research has enhanced our understanding of the ways in which race, socioeconomic status, stress, racism, health behavior and religious involvement can affect physical and mental health. The Everyday Discrimination Scale that he developed is the most widely used measure of discrimination in health studies.

Dr. Williams has been involved in the development of health policy at the national level in the U.S. He has served on Federal advisory committees and testified at Congressional Briefings. He has also served on 10 committees for the National Academy of Medicine, including the committee that prepared the Unequal Treatment report. He has also played a visible leadership role in raising awareness levels of the problem of health inequities and identifying interventions to address them. This includes his service as the staff director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America and as a key scientific advisor of the award-winning PBS film series, Unnatural Causes: Is inequality Making Us Sick?

He has received numerous honors and awards. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2001, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2019. He has also received distinguished contribution awards from the American Sociological Association, the American Psychological Association, the New York Academy of Medicine, the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK, the Association of University Programs in Health Administration, and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the National Institutes of Health. He was ranked as one of the top 10 Most Cited Social Scientists in the world in 2005 and as the Most Cited Black Scholar in the Social Sciences, worldwide, in 2008. In 2014, Thomson Reuters ranked him as one of the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds. Dr. Williams’ research has been featured by many top print and television news organizations. His TED Talk has been translated into 22 languages and has over 1.9 million views.

Dr. Williams has also worked on ethnic inequities in health with the Toronto Public Health Department, the National Health Service (NHS) in the U.K. and the Pan American Health Organization. He currently serves on the board of Trustees of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Solidarity Council on Racial Equity and on the Board of the UK’s NHS Race and Health Observatory.

Dr. Williams has a background in theology, public health and sociology. He received an MPH from Loma Linda University and a PhD in sociology from the University of Michigan.