Helena Hansen, MD, PhD

Helena Hansen, an MD, PhD psychiatrist-anthropologist, is Professor of Psychiatry and Co-Chair of Research Theme in Translational Social Science and Health Equity, as well as Associate Director of the Center for Social Medicine at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. She has published widely in clinical and social science journals ranging from JAMA and NEJM to Social Science and Medicine and Medical Anthropology, on faith healing of addiction in Puerto Rico, psychiatric disability under welfare reform, opioids and race, ethnic marketing of pharmaceuticals, and structural competency. Her first book, Addicted to Christ: Remaking Men in Puerto Rican Pentecostal Drug Ministries was published by the University of California Press in 2018, and her second book, Structural Competency in Medicine and Mental Health: A Case-Based Approach to Treating the Social Determinants of Health, with co-editor Jonathan Metzl, was published by Springer Press in 2019. Her third book, Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Heroin in America, is forthcoming from UC Press. She has received major funding from NIDA, the Mellon Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Open Society Foundation.