Mission

The Center for Health and Wellbeing is an interdisciplinary unit within the Woodrow Wilson School, which seeks to foster research and teaching on the multiple aspects of health and wellbeing in both developed and developing countries. Our goal is to understand the determinants of health and wellbeing, and the role that public policy plays in shaping the quality of peoples lives.
The Center, which began activities in the Fall of 2000, is directed by Christina Paxson. Anne Case, Danny Kahneman, Sara McLanahan, and Harold Shapiro make up its Executive Committee. It is located in Wallace Hall, the building that also houses the Office of Population Research, the Bendheim Thoman Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, and the Research Program in Development Studies (RPDS).
 
The faculty associates of the Center come from a diverse set of disciplinary backgrounds, including psychology, economics, molecular biology, sociology, and demography, and are working on an equally broad set of research topics. Among these are: links between stress and physical and mental health outcomes throughout the life-cycle; the measurement and determinants of happiness; the relationship between economic status, morbidity and mortality; the role that family structure plays in investments in children's health; the relationships between welfare policies, child development and child maltreatment; the design of health insurance systems; and the role of public policy in influencing medical research. A common theme of this work is that research, and ultimately policy, should be aimed at improving physical, mental, and emotional well-being.