Christina Hoven, PhD

Dr. Christina W. Hoven, a Child Psychiatric Epidemiologist, is a graduate of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She is a Professor of Epidemiology and Psychiatry and Director of the Global Psychiatric Epidemiology Group at the Columbia University Medical Center. Professor Hoven is well known for designing and conducting large-scale epidemiological studies, both nationally and internationally, always geared to having significant consequences on public policy by including a major focus on disparities and other social justice issues. In 2002, Professor Hoven conducted an investigation of the effects on NYC public school children of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. That study of more than 8,200 children won international recognition for its methodological sophistication, with its inclusion of children indirectly affected by being far from Ground Zero. Dr. Hoven then testified before the U.S. Senate, ultimately leading to approximately $150 million being allocated to NYC-MA for mental health.

Professor Hoven is currently longitudinally following three large cohorts of children in the New York City Metropolitan Area. One assesses children of a mother or father involved with the criminal justice system. Another examines the psychological consequences to children indirectly exposed to 9/11, based on parental involvement with the WTC attack, such as evacuees and First Responders. Another focuses on children directly exposed to 9/11 at ages 0-17. Dr. Hoven has carried out investigations throughout the world, including a nine-country study of child mental health awareness done in collaboration with WHO and the World Psychiatric Association; a suicidal autopsy study of youth in Tajikistan, done in collaboration with UNICEF, and; in collaboration with the Karolinska Institute, an 11 country Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) with 11,000 school children in 10 countries investigating suicide prevention; and a nine-country RCT of 9,000 school children, that assessed school drop-out. Currently, she is doing a national suicide study (nationally representative community sample, attempters and completers) in Guyana, as well as health workers in Taiwan.

Professor Hoven is currently also attempting to identify biological markers of familial transmission of substance abuse and other psychopathologies through genetics, epigenetics, neuro-imaging, etc., in her epidemiological samples.