Dr. Galea is a physician and an epidemiologist. His primary research has been on the causes of behavioral disorders, particularly substance abuse and common mood anxiety disorders.
Dr. Galea’s research program seeks to uncover how determinants at multiple levels of influence, including policies, features of the social environment, molecular and genetic factors, jointly produce the health of urban populations. Dr. Galea has conducted large population-based studies in several countries, including the US, Spain, Israel, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Liberia, primarily funded by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Galea’s interest in the complex etiology of health and disease has led him to work that explores innovative methodological approaches to population health questions primarily funded by a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Investigator Award. Dr. Galea has published more than 300 scientific journal articles, 50 chapters and commentaries, and six books. Dr. Galea did his graduate training at the University of Toronto Medical School, the Harvard University School of Public Health and the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Prior to his arrival at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, where he is the Anna Cheskis Gelman and Murray Charles Gelman Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology, Dr. Galea was on faculty at the University of Michigan. Several media, including the New York Times, NPR and NBC, have featured Dr. Galea’s work. He was named one of TIME magazine’s epidemiology innovators in 2006.