His most recent book, While We Were Sleeping: Success Stories in Injury and Violence Prevention (2009) describes more than sixty successes, and over thirty heroes who have made the world safer. Private Guns Public Health (2006) describes the public health approach to reducing firearm violence, and summarizes scientific research on firearms and health.

Prices and Choices (3rd edition) (1993) is a collection of twenty-six of his original essays applying microeconomic theory to everyday life. Monitoring and Compliance: the Political Economy of Inspection (1985) describes the importance of inspection processes in ensuring that regulations are followed, and the reasons the system often fails. Industry-wide Voluntary Product Standards (1975) describes the role of voluntary standards and standardization in the U.S. economy.

Dr. Hemenway described in several articles a general reason why low-risk individuals often buy insurance, and coined the term “propitious selection.” Recent economic studies have focused on empirically determining which goods are more and less positional (e.g., bought largely to “keep up with the Joneses”). An early statistics article, Why Your Classes are Larger than Average, has been anthologized in various mathematical collections.

Dr. Hemenway has written widely on injury prevention, including articles on firearms, violence, suicide, child abuse, motor vehicle crashes, fires, falls and fractures. He headed the pilot for what became the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's National Violent Death Reporting System, which provides detailed and comparable information on suicide and homicide.

He briefly appeared in clothing ads in The New Yorker and New York Magazine.

He has won ten teaching awards at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dr. Hemenway lives in Brookline, Massachusetts with his wife, Michelle Schaffer, an attorney, and their daughter Audrey.