Center Scene is a wide-ranging series of public programs organized by the Center for Healthy Communities to raise awareness about the vital issues that affect the health of California's communities. Admission and parking are free at all events. Use of public transportation is strongly encouraged. Click here for a map and directions. Contact rsvpchc@calendow.org with any further questions.

Connected: How Relationships Shape Our Health
Monday, August 2 at 6 p.m.

The California Endowment's
Center for Healthy Communities
1000 N. Alameda St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

"Social Network"— the term conjures visions of online communities from Facebook to MySpace. But offline, how important is your neighbor's cousin's messy divorce in your day-to-day life? Can obesity be just as contagious as H1N1? Join The California Endowment's Center for Healthy Communities for an evening with Nicholas Christakis, Harvard professor, sociologist, policy expert and co-author of Connected, as he explores how the people we know influence our behaviors and can cause epidemics, both good and bad.

Click here to R.S.V.P. 

This event is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. The event will be immediately followed by a networking reception and book signing.

Biography

Nicholas A. Christakis is an internationally recognized authority on how social networks affect our behavior and well-being. One of less than ten people in the U.S. trained as both a sociologist (Ph.D.) and a physician (MD), he specializes in health and social networks and other social factors affecting health, health care and longevity.

For the past decade, Dr. Christakis has focused on how social networks form ("connection") and how they influence behavior ("contagion").

For this groundbreaking work, Dr. Christakis was named to the Time 100 in 2009 and was named “most original thinker” of the year in 2008 on The McLaughlin Group. His research on social networks was featured in Time’s Year in Medicine in both 2007 and 2008, and in Harvard Business Review’s Breakthrough Ideas of the Year (2009).

He is the coauthor of Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, which describes the profound influence social networks have on who we are, what we do and how we feel.  Nicholas Christakis is a Professor in the departments of health care policy, medicine, and sociology at Harvard. He has conducted widely cited research in numer­ous public health topics. He has published over 100 scientific articles and chapters and edited medical textbooks. He is the author of three books besides Connected and has given invited talks all around the world. His work has appeared repeatedly in the past three years on the front pages of The New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and other major media.