UoB Grief Seminars: Dr Christy Denckla, A Public Health Perspective on Grief & Bereavement

Although the grief that follows the death of a loved one is profoundly personal, bereavement is a near-universal human experience. Despite the existence of clinical and public health interventions aimed at supporting grieving individuals, current frameworks often overlook the broader social, structural, and policy-level factors that shape exposure to bereavement and its downstream effects on health. This talk from Dr Christy Denckla (Harvard University) will examine grief and bereavement from a population health perspective, advancing a conceptualization of bereavement not only as an individual emotional experience, but as a social determinant of health with measurable public health implications. Christy A. Denckla is a clinical psychologist and psychiatric epidemiologist leading the Population Wellness Lab at Harvard University, where her research group is unravelling the psychosocial, biological, and environmental factors that shape experiences of, and responses to, loss and trauma. Drawing on large, longitudinal, population-based cohorts, her team investigates mechanisms that shape psychopathology after trauma, focusing on bereavement across the life course. This work seeks to create a world where effective prevention and interventions at the population level support wellness from the cradle to the grave. This is the first of a new seminar series organised by the Bristol Centre for Grief Research and Engagement, in association with Good Grief Festival. To register for future seminars, please visit our website: https://griefcentre.bristol.ac.uk/events