Bernard H. Fox, 83; Linked Psychological Factors to Cancer Risk

Bernard H. Fox, a federal researcher who linked psychological factors to cancer risk, died of pulmonary fibrosis Oct. 9 in a hospital in Everett, Mass. He was 83.

Fox was widely known for a groundbreaking 1978 paper in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine that used evidence from statistics, immunology, virology and other scientific fields to indicate whether stress, depression and other psychological factors could contribute to cancer. Fox, a careful researcher, cautioned that health habits and other factors remained a major influence in who got the disease.

Born in New York City and reared in Malden, Mass., Fox earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at the University of Massachusetts, a master’s in meteorology at New York University, a master’s in psychology at Tufts University and a doctorate in psychology at the University of Rochester. He was an Army weather forecaster during World War II.

Fox worked for the U.S. Public Health Service, studying the role of alcohol in automobile accidents, and for the National Cancer Institute. He later taught at Boston University.