Glorian Sorensen, PhD, MPH

Glorian Sorensen, PhD, MPH

Researcher

Contact Information

Office Phone Number

617-632-2183

Fax

617-632-1999

Appointments

617-632-4673

Biography

Glorian Sorensen, PhD, MPH

Dr. Sorensen joined DFCI and Harvard in 1992. She received her MPH in 1980 and her PhD in sociology in 1983 from the University of Minnesota, where she subsequently served as a research fellow with the School of Public Health. She served as a member of the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Medical School (1986-1992). She directs the DFCI Center for Community-based Research. At the Harvard T.H. Chan School, where she is Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, she directs the Center for Work, Health and Wellbeing. She previously served as the DFCI's Faculty Vice President for Faculty Development.

Researcher

Physician

Director, DFCI Center for Community-Based Research
• Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Director, Harvard T.H. Chan Center for Work, Health and Wellbeing

Recent Awards

  • HERO Workplace Health and Well-Being (HWB) Mark Dundon Research Award 2017
  • Excellence in Teaching Continuing Education Award from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health for 2016
  • Rockefeller Foundation’s Academic Writing Residency, Bellagio, Italy 2015

Research

    The core of Dr. Sorensen’s research is randomized community and worksite studies that test the effectiveness of theory-driven interventions targeting individual and organizational change.  Her research has focused particularly on redressing disparities in cancer risk.  She has designed and tested interventions for low-income and multi-ethnic populations – including blue-collar and service workers – that are embedded in the social context of people’s lives. 
    Dr. Sorensen is the Director and Principal Investigator (PI) for the Harvard Chan Center for Work, Health and Well-being, funded since 2007, by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) through its Total Worker Health® Program.  The Center focuses on protecting and promoting worker safety, health and wellbeing through improved conditions of work. In research first funded in 1989, Dr. Sorensen and her research team were among the first to demonstrate that the integration of occupational health and safety with worksite health promotion can significantly enhance health behavior change among blue-collar workers. Since then, her research team has designed and tested integrated interventions across a range of industries, including manufacturing, construction, health care, social service, and transportation, and with small and large worksites, in over a dozen large-scale trials. This research has focused particularly on low-wage and blue-collar workers, among whom on-the-job risks and risk-related behaviors are especially prevalent.  This research has repeatedly demonstrated that a systems approach integrating occupational safety and health with other workplace initiatives related to worker health has benefits for improved occupational health and safety, and improvements in worker health and safety behaviors. Her training in occupational sociology has provided a platform for her focus on the work organization and environment from a systems perspective.
    Dr. Sorensen has conducted a series of tobacco control studies in India since 2003, in collaboration with the Healis-Sekhsaria Institute of Public Health in Mumbai. There is a profound need for evidence-based interventions that promote tobacco control on a large scale, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. In India in 2010 alone, tobacco use accounted for over 1 million deaths. In the Bihar School Teachers Study, she and her colleagues demonstrated the efficacy of a tobacco use cessation intervention for school teachers in the state of Bihar.  Dr. Sorensen leads research funded by the National Cancer Institute that aims to identify effective strategies for broad-based implementation of evidence-based tobacco control interventions using existing organizational infrastructures and accommodating the realities of low-resource settings.  

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    Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

    450 Brookline Avenue 375 Longwood Avenue 717 Boston, MA 02215
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    Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

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    Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

    450 Brookline Avenue 375 Longwood Avenue 717 Boston, MA 02215
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    42.3374, -71.1082

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