Tyler J. VanderWeele is the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology in the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is also the co-director of Harvard University's Initiative on Health, Religion and Spirituality, the director of their Human Flourishing Program, and a faculty affiliate of the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science. He holds degrees from the University of Oxford, University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University in mathematics, philosophy, theology, finance, and biostatistics.
Research
VanderWeele’s research has focused on causal inference in epidemiology, the study of happiness and human flourishing, as well as the relationship between religion and health. He is author of the book Measuring Well-Being , along with an influential approach to conceptualizing and assessing flourishing. He has defined flourishing as a “state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good.” He is project co-director of the Global Flourishing Study, a $43.4 million study in collaboration with researchers at Harvard University, Baylor University, Gallup, and the Center for Open Science, with over 200,000 participants in 22 countries from six continents with five waves of annual data collection on the factors that influence human flourishing. VanderWeele also conducts research focused on theory and methods for distinguishing between association and causation in the biomedical and social sciences. His contributions to causal inference include introducing the E-value as a quantitative measure for sensitivity analysis and advances in mediation analysis along with the book, Explanation in Causal Inference, on the topic.
His work on causal inference is grounded in the potential outcomes framework, which is a popular approach, but not embraced by everyone. He is also an author of the book Modern Epidemiology, described as “the standard textbook in all academic institutions for a long time to come… as a reference and encyclopedia.”
VanderWeele has published studies on religious service attendance and its relation to lowering mortality, depression, suicide, divorce, and improving many other outcomes.
Awards and honors
VanderWeele is recipient of the Mortimer Spiegelman Award from the American Public Health Association (2014); the John Snow Award from the American Public Health Association (2017); and the Presidents’ Award from the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) (2017) for “fundamental contributions to causal inference and the understanding of causal mechanisms; for profound advancement of epidemiologic theory and methods and the application of statistics throughout medical and social sciences; and for excellent service to the profession including exceptional contributions to teaching, mentoring, and bridging many academic disciplines with statistics.” He was elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 2014, the American Academy of Catholic Scholars and Artists (2021), the International Society for Science and Religion (2021), and the International Positive Psychology Association (2021). He served as the George Eastman Visiting Professor at Balliol College, University of Oxford, during the 2019-2020 academic year. In 2020, he received an honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of America for “ongoing efforts to serve vulnerable populations and develop a fuller understanding of the factors that contribute to human flourishing.”
Outreach and public engagement
VanderWeele’s research on well-being and on religion has been covered by the New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, TIME Magazine, The Economist, CBS, and CNN. He has frequently contributed to Psychology Today on topics concerning human flourishing.
VanderWeele was instrumental in establishing the Flourishing Network, which, through the Human Flourishing Program, serves over 200 community leaders, educators, scholars, business executives, entrepreneurs, and medical professionals in translating research on flourishing into best practices for the promotion of human well-being.
VanderWeele has expressed strong support for academic freedom of expression, and is a member of the Academic Freedom Alliance, the Heterodox Academy, and Harvard’s Council on Academic Freedom.