Alison Hwong
Alison Hwong
Alison Hwong is an MD/PhD student in Health Policy-Medical Sociology. She first became interested in social networks through research in mental health policy.
After college, she spent a year doing research in Geel, Belgium, arguably the oldest mental health treatment community in the world. This town resisted the institutionalizing movement in psychiatry, housing people with mental illness (who are called “boarders”) in homes around the village.
Since starting medical and graduate school, she has become interested in social networks as vehicles for public health interventions. How can our understanding of social networks inform planning and implementation of health programs and the spread of health information?
She looks forward to exploring this question over the next few years, and would welcome your ideas and comments at alison_hwong@hms.harvard.edu.