Omer Gersten
UC Berkeley Demography Dept.
2232 Piedmont Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94720
Phone: (510) 642-9800
FAX: (510) 643-8558
Email: omer AT demog.berkeley.edu

• Gersten, O., Boyce, T., and Timiras, P. Does lower subjective status yield riskier biomarker profiles?
• Gersten, O. and T. Miller. The cancer transition in the devoloped and developing world.
• Gersten, O, Dow, W., and Rosero-Bixby, Luis. Stressors over the lifecourse and physiological dysregulation in Costa Rica.

• Neuroendocrine biomarkers, social relations, and the costs of cumulative stress in Taiwan [pdf]
  Omer Gersten
  Social Science & Medicine, Forthcoming w/invited commentaries on the article and author response to the commentaries (see below)
  
  
• The Cancer Transition in Japan since 1951 [pdf]
  Omer Gersten and John Wilmoth
  Demographic Research, 2002, 7(5):271-306
  
  The most important theoretical contribution of this paper is the idea that a key element of Omran's now classic "epidemiologic transition" can be extended to cancers. According to the epidemiologic transition, population health burdens have historically shifted from diseases mainly infectious in origin, like tuberculosis and smallpox, to those non-infectious in origin, like heart disease and cancer. It is inaccurate, this paper argues, to present cancer as an exemplar of the switch to diseases without an infectious root since in many important cancers, like that of the stomach and liver, infections play a major role in their onset. Nevertheless, one can apply the epidemiologic transition framework to cancers as a group because it is precisely those with an infectious root that are in decline and those related more to lifestyle and behaviors that are on the increase. We call this shift over time in the makeup of the cancer disease burden the "cancer transition."  
  

• The road travelled and the road ahead for the allostatic framework: a rejoinder on the framework's importance and the need for further work related to data, theory, and measurement [pdf]
  Omer Gersten
  Social Science & Medicine, Forthcoming
  
  
• Commentary: liver cancer and the epidemiological and cancer transition theories [pdf]
  Omer Gersten
  International Journal of Epidemiology, 2005, 34(2):403-4
  
  I was invited to comment on Shibuya and Yano's paper [pdf] about liver cancer rates in Japan, which appears in the same issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology. The commentary also serves as a way of summarizing and extending some of the main theoretical findings of my earlier paper co-authored with John Wilmoth (see above).

• Book review: The Selfish Gene (30th Anniversary ed.) by Richard Dawkins [pdf]
  Omer Gersten
  The European Legacy, Forthcoming
  

• The adrenals and pituitary -- stress, adaptation, and longevity [pdf]
  Paola Timiras and Omer Gersten
  Physiological basis of aging and geriatrics, 4th edition (P. Timiras, ed.). 2007, pp. 137-57, New York: Informa Healthcare
  

• Bridging the biological and social worlds: neuroendocrine biomarkers, social relations, and the costs of cumulative stress in Taiwan [pdf]
  Omer Gersten
  UC Berkeley, PhD Dissertation, 2005 (DAI 2006)
  
  In large part my dissertation investigated the connection between social integration and health. This work follows in the footsteps of those like Emile Durkheim, who, in one of the earliest sociological works, found reduced suicide rates among those participating in organized religion. More recent research, primarily in Western populations, has tended to confirm the link between greater social connection (as measured by marriage, number of friends, perceived network support, etc.) and reduced morbidity and mortality. It is thought that social integration might be beneficial because, through a variety of mechanisms, integration reduces levels of stress. In a non-Western population, I tested the hypothesis that positive social integration (and subjective reports of low levels of stress) are correlated with low levels of certain "stress biomarkers." The main finding from the dissertation is that there is little connection between measures of social integration (and life history stress) and measures of neuroendocrine system dysregulation.