Stephen T. McGarvey, PhD, MPH
Professor of Community Health and Director, International Health Institute.

Research Interests
My central interests lie in human populations’ biological and health responses to environmental factors as way to understand the evidence for human adaptive processes and for potential public health action. These human biological responses include those to past environments that may have produced evolutionary population genetic changes and may structure responses to contemporary environmental factors. Because of global economic change and its specific local population and environmental concomitants, contemporary biological and health responses also must be understood concretely in terms of ethnic group biology, history and present socio-cultural and economic influences. A multidisciplinary perspective is key to my conduct of population biology and health research. This has led me to learn and adapt concepts and techniques from several biological, medical and social science disciplines for my research. Similarly this multi- and inter-disciplinary orientation influences my teaching of human population biology and health. I am the principal investigator of two NIH grants on schistosomiasis in the Philippines, one NIH grant on the genetics of obesity in Samoans and co-investigator on a fourth NIH grant on the genetics of Type 2 diabetes in Samoans. My main research techniques are epidemiologic and quantitative. Defined populations are the units of study and I have attempted to integrate social and behavioral data with physiologic and genetic data in an epidemiologic framework.

Selected Publications

1. Schistosomiasis japonica and childhood nutritional status in Northeastern Leyte, the Philippines: A randomized trial of praziquantel versus placebo. ST McGarvey, G Aligui, KK Graham, P Peters, GR Olds, R Olveda. Am J Trop Med Hyg 54(5): 498-502, 1996.

2. Su B, Jin L, Underhill P, Martinson J, Saha N, McGarvey ST, Shriver MD, Chu J, Oefner P, Chakraborty R, Deka R. Polynesian origins: Insights from the Y chromosome. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 97:8225-8228, 2000.

3. Modernization, psychosocial factors, insulin and cardiovascular health, S.T. McGarvey In C. Panter-Brick, C.M. Worthman (eds.) Hormones, Health and Behavior: A socio-ecological and lifespan perspective. Cambridge University Press, pp. 244-280, 1999.

4. Human leptin locus (LEP) alleles and BMI in Samoans. ST McGarvey, W Forrest, DE Weeks, G Sun, D Smelser, J Tufa, S Viali, R Deka. International of Obesity 26 (6): 783-8, 2002.

5. Research Faculty in Medical, Nursing and Public Health Schools. ST McGarvey, GD James. In AS. Ryan (ed.) A Guide to Careers in Physical Anthropology. Greenwood Publishing Group, 137-150, 2002.

Courses Taught
For current and scheduled courses taught by Professor McGarvey, click here.