Walter C Willett

About

Walter C Willett is Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He served as Chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health for 25 years. Much of his work has been on the development of methods, using both questionnaire and biochemical approaches, to study the effects of diet on the occurrence of major diseases. He has applied these methods starting in 1980 in the Nurses’ Health Studies I and II and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Together, these cohorts that include nearly 300,000 men and women with repeated dietary assessments are providing the most detailed information on the long-term health consequences of food choices. Dr. Willett has published over 2,000 research papers, primarily on lifestyle risk factors for heart disease and cancer, and has written the textbook, Nutritional Epidemiology, published by Oxford University Press. He also has four books for the general public. Dr. Willett is the most cited nutritional scientist internationally. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the recipient of many national and international awards for his research.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Environmental health
• Endocrinology
• Gerontology
• Biology
• Computer Science
• Demography
• Economics
• Sociology

Selected publications

• Risk of COVID-19 among front-line health-care workers and the general community: a prospective cohort study

  The Lancet Public Health · 2020 · 2291 citations

  BACKGROUND: Data for front-line health-care workers and risk of COVID-19 are limited. We sought to assess risk of COVID-19 among front-line health-care workers compared with the general community and the effect of personal protective equipment (PPE) on risk. METHODS: We did a prospective, observational cohort study in the UK and the USA of the general community, including front-line health-care workers, using self-reported data from the COVID Symptom Study smartphone application (app) from March…

  DOI

• A saturated map of common genetic variants associated with human height

  Nature · 2022 · 877 citations

  ) account for 40% (45%) of phenotypic variance in populations of European ancestry but only around 10-20% (14-24%) in populations of other ancestries. Effect sizes, associated regions and gene prioritization are similar across ancestries, indicating that reduced prediction accuracy is likely to be explained by linkage disequilibrium and differences in allele frequency within associated regions. Finally, we show that the relevant biological pathways are detectable with smaller sample sizes than a…

  DOI

• Healthy lifestyle and life expectancy free of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes: prospective cohort study

  BMJ · 2020 · 690 citations

  OBJECTIVE: To examine how a healthy lifestyle is related to life expectancy that is free from major chronic diseases. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: The Nurses' Health Study (1980-2014; n=73 196) and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (1986-2014; n=38 366). MAIN EXPOSURES: Five low risk lifestyle factors: never smoking, body mass index 18.5-24.9, moderate to vigorous physical activity (≥30 minutes/day), moderate alcohol intake (women: 5-15 g/day; men 5-30 g/day…

  DOI

• The carbohydrate-insulin model: a physiological perspective on the obesity pandemic

  American Journal of Clinical Nutrition · 2021 · 278 citations

  DOI

• The EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy, sustainable, and just food systems

  The Lancet · 2025-10-01 · 235 citations

  reviewOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R03TW005773

  NIH · $119k · 2005

• NIH Grant U19CA055075

  NIH · $16.9M · 2013

• NIH Grant K04HL001018

  NIH · $52k · 1986

Frequent coauthors

• Meir J. Stampfer

  The Technological College of Beer Sheva

  2617 shared

• Bernard Rosner

  Harvard University

  2112 shared

• Frank B. Hu

  Brigham and Women's Hospital

  1767 shared

• Edward L. Giovannucci

  Harvard University

  1552 shared

• JoAnn E. Manson

  Brigham and Women's Hospital

  1454 shared

• Eric B. Rimm

  Brigham and Women's Hospital

  1405 shared

• Graham A. Colditz

  Washington University in St. Louis

  1380 shared

• Peter Kraft

  1186 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Nutrition

  Harvard University

  1980

• M.S., Nutrition

  University of California, Berkeley

  1977

• B.S., Nutrition

  University of California, Berkeley

  1975

Awards & honors

• Member of the National Academy of Medicine

Similar researchers at Harvard University

• James B Meigsh-246