Eric Chivian papers

Eric Chivian (born 1942), S.B., 1964, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; M.D., 1968, Harvard Medical School (HMS), Boston, Massachusetts, is the founder and former director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment (CHGE) at HMS (now housed at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health), and former Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at HMS. Chivian has worked to involve physicians and public health professionals in influencing public policy on global health issues such as nuclear war and the environment. In 1980, Chivian co-founded the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War with James E. Muller (born 1943), Bernard Lown (1921-2021), and Herbert Abrams (1920-2016); that organization was awarded the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to promote nuclear disarmament. In the 1990s, Chivian turned his attention to the relationship between environmental change and human health. Beginning in 1996, he served for 15 years as founding Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School (now The Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health). Chivian is editor and co-author of several texts, including the 1982 publication Last Aid: The Medical Dimensions of Nuclear War, Critical Condition: Human Health and the Environment, and Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity, published in 2008..