Denise Kandel (; née Bystryn; born February 27, 1933) is an American
medical sociologist
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practices ...
and
epidemiologist
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population.
It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidenc ...
, Professor of Sociomedical Sciences and Psychiatry at Columbia University and Head of the Department of Epidemiology of Substance Abuse at the
New York State Psychiatric Institute
The New York State Psychiatric Institute, located at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, was established in 1895 as one of the first institutions in the United States t ...
. She is known for her epidemiological
longitudinal studies
A longitudinal study (or longitudinal survey, or panel study) is a research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables (e.g., people) over short or long periods of time (i.e., uses longitudinal data). It is often a type of obs ...
on the sequence of first-time use of various legal and illegal drugs, carried out beginning in the 1970s and continuing until at least 2016.
Life
Background and family
Bystryn was born to Jewish parents who emigrated in the 1920s, before knowing each other, from eastern
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
to
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
to attend university. Her father Iser Bystryn (1901–1954) studied in
Caen and became chief engineer in a truck factory near Paris. Her mother Sara Wolsky Bystryn (1906–2003) had to abandon her plans to study in Paris for financial reasons and learned making hats and
corsets. Kandel was born two years after the marriage (1930) of her parents. She had a younger brother, Jean-Claude Bystryn (1938–2010), who became a known American
dermatologist
Dermatology is the branch of medicine dealing with the skin.''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.'' Random House, Inc. 2001. Page 537. . It is a speciality with both medical and surgical aspects. A dermatologist is a specialist medica ...
and scientist at the
NYU Langone Medical Center
NYU Langone Health is an academic medical center located in New York City, New York, United States. The health system consists of NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU Long Island School of Medicine, both part of New York University (NYU), and ...
. Both parents were fluent in French, but spoke
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
at home.
[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: ''Photography (large format) of the parents from 1930 and many biographical details about the family''](_blank)
(accessed May 23, 2016).
In France up to 1949
The family lived in
Colombes near Paris, and Kandel attended a
primary school
A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...
for girls (Ecole des Filles). The children grew up
secularly, the family never went to synagogue, and had presents at Christmas. In 1941, when Kandel was eight, and one year after the
German invasion of France
France has been invaded on numerous occasions, by foreign powers or rival French governments; there have also been unimplemented invasion plans.
* the 1746 War of the Austrian Succession, Austria-Italian forces supported by the British navy attemp ...
during the Second World War, Denise’s father was arrested as a
"foreign Jew" and interned 100 km south of Paris in the Nazi
Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp
Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp was an internment and transit camp for foreign-born Jews (men, women, and children), located in Beaune-la-Rolande in occupied France, it was operational between May 1941 and July 1943, during World War II.
The ...
. After some time he succeeded in fleeing to
Cahors
Cahors (; oc, Caors ) is a commune in the western part of Southern France. It is the smallest prefecture among the 13 departments that constitute the Occitanie Region. The main city of the Lot department and the historical center of the Que ...
in south-western France, where could also meet his family again. While the parents – separated from each other – had to hide at changing places, the children found more stable shelter. Kandel was able to stay as a pupil in the
convent
A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglic ...
Sainte-Jeanne d'Arc of Cahors until spring 1944, when she had to flee even from there and then lived with a family near
Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Pa ...
. In 1949 her family emigrated to the US.
In the USA since 1949
Kandel attended the
Lycée Français de New York
The Lycée Français de New York (LFNY), commonly called the Lycée (in English, "The French High School of New York"), is an independent bilingual French school serving an international community of students from Nursery-3 to twelfth grade based ...
, where she received the
Baccalauréat after one year. At the age of 17 she was accepted by
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United ...
near
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, where she graduated within two years for financial reasons. She then returned to New York to become a PhD student at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
. Her tutor was
Robert K. Merton
Robert King Merton (born Meyer Robert Schkolnick; July 4, 1910 – February 23, 2003) was an American sociologist who is considered a founding father of modern sociology, and a major contributor to the subfield of criminology. He served as th ...
, and she wrote a thesis in
medical sociology
Medical sociology is the sociological analysis of medical organizations and institutions; the production of knowledge and selection of methods, the actions and interactions of healthcare professionals, and the social or cultural (rather than cl ...
about how medical students decide on their professional specialization.
During this time she met neuropsychiatrist
Eric Kandel
Eric Richard Kandel (; born Erich Richard Kandel, November 7, 1929) is an Austrian-born American medical doctor who specialized in psychiatry, a neuroscientist and a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the College of Physicians and Surge ...
, future recipient of the 2000
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...
. They married in 1956 and had two children.
Scientific work
When in the 1960s research on drug misuse gained in importance, Kandel applied to join a research team that intended to investigate drug use among high school students. She assumed she could contribute with her research experience concerning the influence of parents and peer groups on adolescents. However, she was rejected, because she wanted to interview both parents and students, and the research team feared that this might undermine students' cooperation. Kandel developed her own research project, which ultimately led to an influential longitudinal study of 1,325 persons. Later, she considered this work as a turning point in her career.
The main subject of this and further investigations was the sequence of first-time use of various legal and illegal drugs. Her research in this area found a strong resonance in scientific and political discussions, and the
catchphrase
A catchphrase (alternatively spelled catch phrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through word of mouth and a variety of mass ...
s "stepping-stone theory" (used since the 1930s) and
"gateway hypothesis" (used since the 1980s) were associated with her name, though often misleadingly. Contrary to many others, Kandel always emphasized the difference between sequence and causation in the first-time use of different substances. These may – but need not – be coupled, a question which is investigated in further research, particularly in
physiological experiments.
Awards
* 1985 –
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
(NIH):
National Institute on Drug Abuse
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is a United States federal government research institute whose mission is to "advance science on the causes and consequences of drug use and addiction and to apply that knowledge to improve individual a ...
(NIDA): Senior Scientist Research Award (K05)
* 2002 – R. Brinkley Smithers Distinguished Scientist Award
* 2003 – Prevention Science Award
The Society for Prevention Research, Award Listings, 2003
Selected publications
Original research reports
*
*
*
*
*
Books
* Denise B Kandel: ''The career decisions of medical students: a study in occupational recruitment and occupational choice''. Dissertation, Columbia University, New York 1960.
* Denise B Kandel, Richard Hays Williams: ''Psychiatric rehabilitation: some problems of research''. New York, Atherton 1964.
* Denise Bystryn Kandel, Gerald S. Lesser: ''Youth in two worlds''. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass 1972, .
* Denise Bystryn Kandel: ''Longitudinal Research on Drug Use: Empirical Findings and Methodological Issues''. Halsted Press 1978, .
* Denise B. Kandel: ''Parental Influences on Adolescent Marijuana Use And The Baby Boom Generation: Findings from the 1979–1996 National Household Surveys on Drug Abuse''. U.S. Government Printing Office 2001, .
* Denise B. Kandel (Ed.): ''Stages and Pathways of Drug Involvement: Examining the Gateway Hypothesis''. Cambridge University Press 2002, .
References
External links
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons: ''Report on scientific collaboration of Denise & Eric Kandel, October 3, 2011''
(accessed May 23, 2016).
* Video
Denise and Eric Kandel: ''E-Cigarettes May Promote Illicit Drug Use and Addiction''
Columbia University News, September 2, 2014 (accessed May 23, 2016).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kandel, Denise Bystryn
1933 births
Living people
American epidemiologists
American people of French-Jewish descent
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American women epidemiologists
Jewish American scientists
Medical sociologists
Bryn Mawr College alumni
Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health faculty
21st-century American Jews
21st-century American women