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Paul R. Epstein, M.D., M.P.H., 1943-2011
Instructor in Medicine
Harvard Medical School

Paul Robert Epstein was born on Nov. 16, 1943, in Manhattan, the older of two children of Nathan Epstein, a physician, and Edith Hillman Boxill, a music therapist. He was a graduate of the Little Red School House, a progressive private school, where his classmates included figures active in the '60s antiwar movement like Angela Davis and Kathy Boudin. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School, Cornell University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Dr. Epstein, a physician and associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, started his medical career working in low-income communities, from East Cambridge to the east coast of Africa .After spending 1978 through 1980 in Mozambique with his wife, Andy, a nurse, he enrolled in a master's program in tropical public health at Harvard. Soon he was making critical connections between the emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases and climate change.

It was while attending the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in June of 1992 that Dr. Epstein's public health mission became solidified. There, he and Dr. Eric Chivian, a Harvard psychiatrist and now director of the Center they co-launched in 1996, noticed something alarming: While wolves, whales, oceans and trees garnered ample attention, no one was talking about human beings.

Over the next several years, Drs. Epstein and Chivian continued to make the concept of global environmental change both concrete and personal for people, primarily by relating those changes to human health.

Dr. Epstein was a true pioneer in the area of climate change and human health. He was one of the first medical experts to recognize and inform on the less obvious health effects of greenhouse gases, from ragweed pollen to extreme weather events. He received recognition for his contributions to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former. Gore tapped Dr. Epstein as a science adviser in conceiving the slide show about global warming that became the basis of the Academy Award-winning 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

Dr. Epstein published widely about the health effects of climate change in both journals and lay publications. He co-authored a book " Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It," which was recently released. He spoke often on this subject in the media and through public lectures, including educating physicians through a partnership with the American Medical Association.

Dr. Epstein is survived by his wife of 44 years, Andy Epstein; and children, Jesse and Benjamin Epstein. A memorial celebration will be announced in the early spring. Donations gratefully received by the Union of Concerned Scientists, www.ucsusa.org.

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Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It "Changing Planet, Changing Health is a landmark book that will raise our consciousness about how we should respond to a growing emergency and save lives." —Al Gore

OFFICIAL BIO:

Paul R. Epstein, M.D., M.P.H., a medical doctor trained in tropical public health, passed away in November, 2011. Dr. Epstein worked in medical, teaching and research capacities in Africa, Asia and Latin America and in 1993,and coordinated an eight-part series on Health and Climate Change for the British medical journal, Lancet. He also worked with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to assess the health impacts of climate change and develop health applications of climate forecasting and remote sensing. He was the associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment from 1996-2011.

Dr. Epstein also served as a reviewer for the Health chapter of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and coordinated Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological and Economic Dimensions, an international project with Swiss Re and the United Nations Development Programme assessing the new risks and opportunities presented by a changing climate. He has also prepared the report Healthy Solutions for the Low Carbon Economy: Guidelines for Investors, Insurers and Policy Makers that examines the "stabilization wedges" through the lens of health and ecological safety.

He coordinated two Cat Modeling Forums with A.I.G., Lloyd's of London and other insurers and insurance brokers, facilitating integration of dynamic and statistical models for better risk assessment and reduction. Dr. Epstein received recognition for his contributions to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore.

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

Selected Publications

Epstein, P. The ecology of climate change and infectious diseases: comment. Ecology 2010; 91: 925-928.

Epstein, P.R.Bringing Climate Change into Global Governance Solutions 12 March 2010.

Epstein, P.R. "Climate Change Facts" The New York Times 13 February 2010.

Epstein, P.R.Evaluation of the paper "Increase in Agulhas leakage due to poleward shift of Southern Hemisphere westerlies" Faculty of 1000: Biology 23 December 2009.

Epstein, P.R.Two Outta Three Ain't a Bad Start: Lurching Toward Global Governance in Copenhagen Solutions 22 December 2009.

Epstein, P.R. What the Copenhagan Climate Conference Accomplished Rodale 21 December 2009.

Epstein, P.R. Ethanol and Smog: A Matter of Our Health The New York Times 4 December 2009.

Epstein, P.R. Bringing Climate Change into Global Governance. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 9 November 2009.

Almendares J and Epstein PR. Climate Change and Health Vulnerabilities. State of the World 2009 Climate Connections. Worldwatch Institute.

Epstein PR. Climate change and human health. In: IOM (Institute of Medicine) Global climate change and extreme weather events: understanding the contributions to infectious disease emergence. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2008:75-78.

Epstein PR. Climate change futures: health ecological and economic dimensions. In: IOM (Institute of Medicine) Global climate change and extreme weather events: understanding the contributions to infectious disease emergence. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2008:79-89.

Epstein PR. Fossil fuels, allergies and a host of other ills. (Editorial). Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. 2008; 122(3):471-2. PDF

Epstein PR. Climate Change: Healthy Solutions (Guest Editorial). Environmental Health Perspectives. 2007;115(4): A180. PDF

Epstein PR. Editorial: Chikungunya Fever Resurgence and Global Warming. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 2007;76(3): 403-404. PDF

Epstein PR. Climate change and human health. New England Journal of Medicine. October 2005; 353:1433-1436. PDF

Epstein, P.R., Mills, E. (Eds.). Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological and Economic Dimensions, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA., Nov 2005. PDF

Epstein PR. Book Review: Climate change and human health: risks and responses. Bulletin of the World Health Organization. May 2005;85:396-397. PDF

Anderson PK, Cunningham AA, Patel NG, Morales FJ, Epstein PR, Daszak P. Emerging infectious diseases of plants: Pathogen pollution, climate change and agriculture drivers. Trends. Ecol. Evol. 2004;19:536-544. PDF

Epstein P. Climate Change and Public Health: Emerging Infectious Diseases. Encycolpedia of Energy. 2004;1:381-392. PDF

Epstein PR, McCarthy JJ. Assessing Climate Stability. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. December 2004;1863-1870. PDF

Epstein PR, Chivian E, Frith K. Emerging diseases threaten conservation. Environmental Health Perspectives. 2003;111:A506-A507. PDF

Epstein PR. Climate change and infectious disease: stormy weather ahead? Epidemiology. 2002;13:373-375. PDF

Epstein PR. Biodiversity, climate change and emerging infectious diseases. In: Aguirre AA, Ostfeld RS, Tabor GM, House C, Pearl MC. Conservation Medicine: Ecological Health in Practice. New York, NY:Oxford University Press; 2002:27-39.

Wayne P, Foster S, Connolly J, Bazzaz F, Epstein P. Production of allergenic pollen by ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia L.) is increased in CO2-enriched atmospheres. Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. 2002;8:279-282. PDF

Epstein PR, Defilippo C. West Nile virus and drought. Global Change & Human Health. 2001;2:105-107. PDF

Rose JB, Epstein PR, Lipp EK, Sherman BH, Bernard SM, Patz JA. Climate Variability and Change in the United States: Potential Impacts on Water and Foodborne Diseases Caused by Microbiologic Agents. Environmental Health Perspectives. 2001;109(suppl 2):211-221. PDF

Rosenzweig C, Iglesias A, Yang XB, Epstein PR, Chivian E. Climate change and extreme weather events: Implications for food production, plant diseases, and pests. Global Change & Human Health. 2001;2:90-104. PDF

Epstein PR. Is Global Warming Harmful to Health? Scientific American. August 2000:36-43. PDF

Epstein PR. Climate and health. Science. 1999;285:347-348. PDF

Harvell CD, Kim K, Burkholder JM, et al. Emerging Marine Diseases - Climate Links and Anthropogenic Factors. Science. 1999;285:1505-1510. PDF

Epstein PR, Diaz HF, Elias S, et al. Biological and Physical Signs of Climate Change: Focus on Mosquito-Borne Diseases. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 1998;79:409-417. PDF

(Photo by Liza Green. © 2007 President and Fellows of Harvard College on behalf of HMS Media Services, All Rights Reserved.)