Mapping a global dialogue on health and society.
Founded to bridge medical, social, and cultural approaches to wellbeing, the Network has grown into a truly international forum for collaborative health research.
Advancing interdisciplinary research on health, wellbeing, and social systems.
The Health, Wellness & Society Research Network brings together scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to examine how health emerges at the intersection of bodies, communities, and environments. Member-based and scholar-led, the Network is a global forum for ideas that connect evidence, equity, and lived experience.
Founded in 2011, the Health, Wellness & Society Research Network was created to bring medical, social, and cultural perspectives on health into one conversation. From the beginning, it has focused on how prevention, access, and the social determinants of health intersect—how biology, psychology, environment, and culture come together to shape wellbeing, and how policy and practice can improve outcomes across different populations.
Since its launch, the International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society has been hosted by institutions including the University of California, Berkeley; University Center, Chicago; Escola Paulista de Medicina – Universidade Federal de São Paulo; UBC Robson Square (Vancouver); Universidad de Alcalá (Madrid); the Catholic University of America (Washington, D.C.); the University of Denver; Imperial College London; Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3; Sorbonne Université; the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg); Malmö University; and the University of Granada, among others. Conference themes have traced a clear arc—from “Health and Wellness With Diverse Audiences” and “Medical Uncertainty, Paradox, and Quality Health Care” through big data, civic responsibility, equity, pandemics, digitization, and, most recently, “Emotional vs Artificial Intelligence: A Paradigm Shift in Healthcare?”.
Alan Ewert, the Founding Chair and Editor (2011–2020), helped shape its early commitment to interdisciplinary health sciences and practice-based research. Since 2020, Louise Dalingwater (Sorbonne Université) has served as Chair and Editor, bringing her background in health policy, public services, and comparative systems. She is joined by Angélica Avendaño Veloso (Universidad de Concepción) as Spanish-language Chair, whose work in digital health and Latin American public health strengthens the Network’s bilingual and cross-regional reach.
Over the years, the conference has featured plenary speakers who work at the intersection of research, policy, and practice. George Lambie, Linda Neuhauser, Bechara Choucair, Carol Braunschweig, Renato D. Alarcón, Dante Gallian, Miguel A. Luengo-Oroz, Linda Kurti, and Ben Chrisinger, among others, have addressed topics such as public health communication, nutrition and chronic disease, mental health, global health policy, ethics, and urban wellbeing. Together, they have kept the Network focused on health as a shared endeavor between individuals, professions, and institutions.
The Network’s publishing work is anchored by The International Journal of Health, Wellness, and Society. The journal provides an interdisciplinary forum on human physiology and epidemiology and their relation to public policy, health education, and the social conditions of wellbeing. It publishes contributions ranging from broad theoretical and policy pieces to detailed empirical studies, and is a Hybrid Open Access journal indexed in Scopus, EBSCO, ProQuest, STM Source, and other services.
Each year, the Health, Wellness & Society International Award for Excellence recognizes one article selected from the ten highest-ranked peer-reviewed papers in the journal. The winning article is granted Open Access status and the author is invited to speak at the following year’s conference. Past award-winning work has covered topics such as museum-based wellbeing interventions, health communication post–COVID-19, HIV stigma among service providers, student mental health, community-based health in vulnerable populations, occupational health and safety, Indigenous food and health practices, and social justice in healthcare.
Long-form projects are supported by the Health, Wellness & Society Book Imprint, which publishes monographs and edited volumes aimed at clinicians, educators, community leaders, and policymakers. The imprint is explicitly inclusive of authors from different disciplines and career stages, welcomes both broad and niche topics, and offers Open Access pathways so that research can circulate widely beyond the academy.
Today, the Health, Wellness & Society Research Network links its annual conference, journal, book imprint, and CGScholar community to examine how health emerges at the intersection of bodies, communities, and environments. It remains a member-based, scholar-led forum for work that connects evidence with equity and lived experience—asking how societies can design systems that support not only longer lives, but fairer and healthier ones.
We are thankful for the leadership of current and past Research Network Chairs.
Chair, Editor
(2020- )
Founding Chair, Editor
(2011-20)
Current Chair and Editor
The International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society has a rich history of featuring leading and emerging voices from the field, including:
Professor, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
(2011)
Clinical Professor, University of California, Berkeley, USA
(2011)
Senior Vice President, Safety Net & Community Health, Trinity Health, USA
(2012)
Associate Head, Kinesiology and Nutrition, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA
(2012)
Professor, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, USA
(2013)
Professor, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
(2014)
Chief Scientist, UN Global Pulse, New York, USA
(2015)
National Director, Economic and Social Advisory, Urbis, Australia
(2016)
University of Oxford, UK
(2019)
Partnerships extend the Network’s scholar-led mission—linking universities, research institutes, and community organizations committed to healthier societies. Recent partners include:
