Phone: +45 6550 3049
E-mail: kchristensen@health.sdu.dk
Department:
Dept. of Public Health/Unit for Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography
Biography:
Kaare Christensen is a Professor of Epidemiology and Head of Research at the University of Southern Denmark, Unit for Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography, since 2013. He is Director of the Danish Twin Registry and of the Danish Aging Research Center. He is a Long Life Family Study representative on the US National Institutes of Health ELITE Steering Committee; he is, among others, member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters; member of the Danish Knowledge Council for Prevention; member of the Researchers Panel of Sygeforsikringen Danmark Donationer (Health Insurance Danmark Donations); member of Helsefondens Forskningsudvalg (the Danish Health Foundation’s Research Council). He has received several national and international awards and prizes for his research. He has served on panels and study sections for the US National Academies, the US National Institutes of Health; European National Agencies, and for major private trusts (e.g. Wellcome Trust). His research has resulted in more than 800 peer-reviewed publications since 1996. Among these are papers in New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, BMJ, Nature Reviews Genetics, JAMA, PNAS and Science.
1999: University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
DMSc, Epidemiology
1994: University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
PhD, Epidemiology
1987: Odense University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Denmark
MD
1989: Licensure to practice medicine
Kaare Christensen is highly engaged in interdisciplinary aging research and has been able to combine methods from epidemiology, genetics, medicine, and demography to obtain new insights into the Development and Aging. Christensen’s group has conducted a world-renowned series of twin studies among younger and elderly people to shed light on the relative and specific contribution of genes and environment in aging, aging-related diseases and longevity. He has a longstanding interest in the relation between early life development and later life health outcomes. For over 30 years Kaare Christensen has been heading large-scale aging and twin studies in Denmark and for the last decade he has been co-PI on the international NIH U19 research program “Long Life Family Study”.