Cohen is one of the world's leading health psychologists and one
of the architects of Carnegie Mellon's highly regarded health
psychology program. In 1997, he published a groundbreaking
article in the Journal of the American Medical Association
demonstrating that people with diverse social networks and
greater sociability have better health practices and increased
resistance to disease. The NIH grant will help Cohen and his
colleagues to build on this work by exploring two major
questions. One, what is the impact of a person's social
environment on their health and well-being? The researchers will
take into account study participants' childhood experiences,
including the safety of their home and neighborhood, their
activities as children and their parents' social networks as
well as the nature of their current social activities and
relationships. Next, the researchers will try to determine which
biological factors are influenced by social well-being to impact
health. Cohen already has established, for example