Directory

Nancy Davis Lewis

Director, Research Program

Ph.D., Geography, University of California, Berkeley

Email: LewisN@EastWestCenter.org
Phone: 808-944-7245
Fax: 808-944-7399
Research Interests: health and development, the geography of health and disease, human ecology, the environment, gender, climate change and human health, and the human dimensions of global change, and sustainability science.

Dr. Lewis' research falls within the overlapping fields of human ecology and the geography of health and health care systems. Extensive fieldwork as part of her dissertation research was supplemented by shorter periods in the Island Pacific, Caribbean and elsewhere in the Developing World. Initially interested in human-environment interactions and resultant patterns of health and disease, more recent research has focused on mortality patterns in the Pacific, HIV/AIDS and, most recently, geographic frameworks for expanding the definition of women's health beyond maternal and child health to a more comprehensive definition of women's health.

Dr. Lewis was associate dean of the UH College of Social Sciences from 1993 to 2001. She held an appointment as professor in the UH Department of Geography, which she joined in 1981, and with the UH Center for Pacific Islands Studies. She serves as secretary general of the Pacific Science Association and is president of the Hawaii chapter of Sigma Xi - the Scientific Research Society.

She was a W.K. Kellogg National Fellow in 1986-89 and carried out field research in several Pacific island nations as a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Awardee in 1977-79. Her MA degree in geography, MS degree in health and medical science, and doctorate in geography are from the University of California-Berkeley.

She also had affiliate appointments in women's studies, community health development, urban and regional planning and has served as co-chair of the College of Social Sciences research Committee, research associate in the Social Science Research Institute, adjunct research associate in the former EWC Environment and Policy Institute, and consultant to the Center's Pacific Islands Development Program.

Lewis is a member of the editorial board of The Contemporary Pacific: A Journal of Island Affairs, Pacific Science, and Ethics, Place and Environment. She is the author or editor of numerous professional publications, including Geographies of Women's Health, published in April by Routledge, London.

She also has served with the International Geographical Union Commission on Health and Development; the International Federation of Institutes for Advanced Study, Gender, Science and Development Programme; the U.S. National Academy of Science Committee for the Pacific Science Association; and the Council for International Exchange of Scholars Geography Advisory Committee for Fulbright Scholars as well as the State Executive Office on Aging Policy Board on Elderly Affairs; and the Board of the UC Berkeley Alumni Association.

Selected Publications:

Lewis, Nancy Davis 1998. "Intellectual Intersections: Gender and Health in the Pacific," Social Science and Medicine 46(6): 641-659.

Lewis, N., Hamnett, M., Prasad, U., Tran, L. Hilton, A. 1998. "Climate and Health in the Pacific: Research in Progress," Pacific Health Dialog 5(1): 187-190.

Lewis, Nancy Davis and Rapaport, Moshe 1995. "In a sea of change: Health transitions in the Pacific Islands," Health and Place: An International Journal 4(1): 211-226.

Lewis, Nancy Davis and Kieffer, Edith C. 1994. "The health of women: Beyond maternal and child health," Chapter 8 in Health and Development, D. Phillips and Y. Verhasselt, eds., International Geographical Union Commission on Health and Development. London and New York: Routledge, pp 122-137.

Lewis, Nancy Davis and Bailey, Jodi 1993. "HIV and international travel: Global implications and Pacific perspectives," Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health 6(3): 557-564

Taylor, Richard, Lewis, Nancy D. and Sladden, Tim 1991. "Mortality in Pacific Island countries around 1980: Geopolitical, demographic and health service factors," Australian Journal of Public Health 15(3): 207-221.

Lewis, Nancy Davis 1990. "More than health services: Health for Pacific peoples," Regional Development Dialogue 11(4): 76-107.

Lewis, Nancy Davis and Mayer, Jonathan 1988. "Disease as a natural hazard," Progress in Human Geography 12(1): 15-33.

Taylor, Richard; Lewis, Nancy Davis and Sue Levy 1989. "Societies in transition: mortality patterns in Pacific Island populations," International Journal of Epidemiology 18(3): 634-646.

Lewis, Nancy Davis and Mukaida, Lori Van Dusen 1991. "Telecommunications in the Pacific: ThePEACESAT experiment," Chapter 11 in Collapsing Space and Time: Geographical Aspects of Communication and Information, T. Leinback and S. Brunn, eds. London: Harper Collins, pp. 232-251.

Related Publications

AIDS and Tourism: Implications for Pacific Island States
Geographies of Women's Health
Preparing for a Changing Climate: The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change (Executive Summary)

Related Research Projects