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Harvard Medical School
401 Park Drive, 2nd Floor East
Boston, MA 02215
Tel: 617.384.8530
Fax: 617.384.8585
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Eric Chivian, M.D.
Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry,
Harvard Medical School

Dr. Eric Chivian holds an A.B. degree cum Laude in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard College, and a M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He is Founder and Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment, and an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, at Harvard Medical School. In 1980, he co-founded (with Professors Bernard Lown, Herbert Abrams, and James Muller) International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

During the past 17 years, Dr. Chivian has worked to involve physicians in the United States and abroad in efforts to protect the environment, and to increase public understanding of the potential human health consequences of global environmental change. As part of these activities, he designed and organized the 1992 MIT/Harvard School of Public Health symposium “Human Health and the Environment: the Medical Consequences of  Environmental Degradation”, and was senior editor and author of  MIT Press’ Critical Condition: Human Health and the Environment. The book, published in 1993, the first on the subject for a general audience, has been used as a text at several medical schools, schools of public health, and universities in the United States and abroad. Editions have been published in German, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, and Persian.

In 1996, Dr. Chivian founded and became director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, the first center at a medical school in the United States focusing on the human health dimensions of global environmental change. The Center (designated an official “Collaborating Center” of the United Nations Environment Programme) has developed and directed the Harvard Medical School course “Human Health and Global Environmental Change” (which has been disseminated to 65 other medical schools, colleges, and universities in the U.S. and abroad); has held briefings and courses for the U.S. Congress; has been a consultant to the U.S. State Department, the Department of Defense, NOAA, NASA, and the EPA; and has advised the Environmental Ministers of the G8 nations on the health impacts of global climate change

Currently, he directs a project under the auspices of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that is preparing the most comprehensive report yet available on the subject “Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity,” which will be published as a book in June 2008 by Oxford University Press, and presented to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, the U.S. Congress, the European Union, and other policy-maker bodies.

In 1978, Dr. Chivian, with Drs. Helen Caldicott and Ira Helfand, revived Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), and two years later, he designed and organized the first major public symposium on “The Medical Consequences of Nuclear War,” which achieved widespread international press attention and which catalyzed PSR’s national campaign to prevent nuclear war.

Dr. Chivian was the senior editor and author of Last Aid: The Medical Dimensions of Nuclear War, published in 1982 by W. H. Freeman and Co. (Scientific American), which also appeared in German, Italian, and Japanese editions. In the mid 1980s, he directed the first scientific survey of American and Soviet teenagers’ attitudes about nuclear war and the future for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and MIT’s Center for International Studies.

Dr. Chivian was also Director of PSR’s Project on Global Environmental Change and Health from 1993 to 1996. During this time, he was senior author of a report prepared for the White House, “Environmental Health: Issues for Health Care Reform”, was a consultant to the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and a U.S. Government reviewer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group II 2nd Assessment Report.

Dr. Chivian has lectured widely in the U.S. and abroad, and has appeared on national television and radio and in the print media in several countries. He has over 40 publications. His area of interest is the human health consequences of habitat degradation, species loss, and ecosystem disruption.

Visit the Center's media page for appearances of Dr. Chivian and other Center staff in the news. Selected journal publications are below.

Selected Publications

Chivian E, Bernstein A. Guest Editorial, Embedded in Nature: Human Health and Biodiversity. Environmental Health Perspectives. 2004;112:A12-A13. PDF

Chivian E, Roberts C, Bernstein A. Replies to Letters: How Much at Risk Are Cone Snails? Science. 2004;303:954. PDF

Chivian E, Roberts C, Bernstein A. Letter to the Editor - The Threat to Cone Snails. Science. 2003;302:391. PDF

Chivian E. Species Loss and Ecosystem Disruption: The Implications for Human Health. Canadian Medical Association Journal. 2001;164:66-69. PDF

Grifo FT, Chivian E. The Implications of Biodiversity Loss for Human Health. In: Cracrat J, Grifo FT, eds. The Living Planet in Crisis: Biodiversity Science and Policy. New York, NY: Columbia University Press; 1999:197-208.

Chivian E. Global Environmental Degradation and Biodiversity Loss: Implications for Human Health. In: Grifo F, Rosenthal J, eds. Biodiversity and Human Health. Washington, DC: Island Press; 1997:7-38.

Chivian E. The Ultimate Preventive Medicine. Technology Review. Nov/Dec 1994:34-40.

McCally M, Last J, Chivian E. Medicine and the Environment. In: Bittar A, Bittar E, eds. Principles of Medical Biology. London, England: Jai Press; 1994.

Chivian E. Species Extinction and Biodiversity Loss: The Implications for Human Health. In: Chivian E, McCally M, Hu H, Haines A, eds.Critical Condition: Human Health and the Environment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 1993:193-224.

Chivian E, McCally M, Hu H, Haines A, eds. Critical Condition: Human Health and the Environment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 1993.

Online Lectures

"Global Environmental Issues: Effects on the Atmosphere and the Biosphere," with Mario Molina as part of the Ford/MIT Nobel Laureate Lecture Series. March 6, 2003.