Jeff Levin

University Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health
Professor of Medical Humanities
Director, Program on Religion and Population Health (PRPH)

Email Jeff Levin  | www.religionandhealth.com | Publications | PRPH         

Dr. Jeff Levin, an epidemiologist by training, holds a distinguished chair at Baylor University, where he is University Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health, Professor of Medical Humanities, and Director of the Program on Religion and Population Health at the Institute for Studies of Religion. Dr. Levin is a pioneering scientist whose research, beginning in the early 1980s, helped to create the field of religion and health. Both biomedical scientist and religious scholar, his work at the interface of religion, science, and medicine has been instrumental in broadening the perspectives of researchers and clinicians on the connections among body, mind, and spirit. He joined the Baylor faculty in the fall of 2009.

Dr. Levin was the first scientist to systematically review the empirical literature on religion and health, and the first scientist funded by the NIH to conduct research on the topic.  He is a Past President of the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine, is a member of the Extended Faculty of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, was Chairman of the NIH Working Group on Quantitative Methods in Alternative Medicine, and has served on the editorial boards of numerous peer-reviewed journals.  He has authored over 150 scholarly publications, mostly on the instrumental functions of religion for physical and mental health, general well-being, and aging.  He has written or edited seven books, notably God, Faith, and Health and the forthcoming Divine Love: Perspectives from the World's Religious Traditions. According to the Institute for Scientific Information, since 1981 Dr. Levin has been one of the most highly cited social scientists in the world.

Dr. Levin holds an A.B. in religion and in sociology from Duke University, an M.P.H. from the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, and a Ph.D. in Preventive Medicine and Community Health from the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Texas Medical Branch.  He completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Michigan’s Institute of Gerontology.  His research has been funded by several NIH grants, totaling over $1 million in support, and he also has received funding from private sources, including the AMA Education and Research Foundation.  In 2002, he was elected a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America.

Dr. Levin’s current work is focused on four areas:  (a) the influence of religion on population health and aging, (b) biblical and rabbinic perspectives on the role of divine love in Jewish moral theology, (c) theories of healing and the work of healers, and (d) the history and future of discourse on Judaism and health.  He is currently engaged in research and writing on each of these topics.  He also serves as Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center and as Scientific Chair of the Kalsman Roundtable on Judaism and Health Research at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He is married to Dr. Lea Steele, who will be joining Baylor as Research Professor in the Institute of Biomedical Studies.