Spiegelman award winner talk

This talk with present the work of the Spiegleman award winner Dr. Tyler VanderWeele.

His methodologic research concerns how we distinguish between association and causation in the biomedical and social sciences and the study of the mechanisms by which causal effects arise.  The current focus of my work includes the analysis of pathways, assessments of interaction, and the evaluation of network and spillover effects in which one person’s exposure will affect the outcomes of another. Dr. VanderWeele's research employs counterfactual theory and ideas from causal inference to clarify and formalize concepts used by epidemiologists, biomedical researchers and social scientists.

His empirical work has been in the areas of perinatal, psychiatric and genetic epidemiology; various fields within the social sciences; and the study of religion and health. In perinatal epidemiology, he has worked on evaluating prenatal care indices, on the analysis of trends in birth outcomes, and on assessing the role of preterm birth in mediating the effects of prenatal exposures on mortality outcomes. In genetic epidemiology, he has been studying gene-environment interaction and the pathways by which genetic variants operate. In psychiatric epidemiology, he sudies the feedback and inter-relationships between depression, loneliness and subjective well-being. His work in the social sciences has included the study of educational interventions, micro-finance programs, social network effects, and judicial decisions. His work in religion and health is oriented towards assessing the mechanisms by which religion and spirituality affect health outcomes.