Merlin Chowkwanyun is a historian of public health and the Donald Gemson Assistant Professor
of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. He is the
Principal Investigator of the NSF-funded ToxicDocs.org, a repository of once-secret documents
on industrial poisons. His first book, All Health Politics Is Local, was published by the
University of North Carolina Press in 2022, and he is working now on Who Dies?, a re-
assessment of social determinants of health research to be published by W. W. Norton in its
Shorts series.
Merlin Chowkwanyun
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Writing on Public Books
“2020 Isn’t Over”: Eric Klinenberg on Pandemics, Politics, and Solidarity
“What we needed was wisdom and clarity. What we got was chaos and confusion.”
Pandemic Syllabus
Disease has never been merely a biological phenomenon. Instead, all illnesses—including COVID-19—are social problems for humans to solve.
Pandemic Syllabus
Disease has never been merely a biological phenomenon. Instead, all illnesses—including COVID-19—are social problems for humans to solve.
