Faculty

Carlos Mendes de Leon, PhD

Title:
Professor of Epidemiology

Interests:
Dr. Mendes de Leon is a social epidemiologist with a primary interest in the major health problems and health disparities in late life. His work focuses on a broad array of social and psychological determinants that affect the development and progression of disability, cognitive decline and other common, age-related health outcomes. Specific areas of interest include the role of neighborhood-level social processes and environments in late-life health, and the complex interplay between life-course social conditions and biological processes and their functional consequences in older age. His current studies focus on the role of neighborhood contexts and inflammatory processes in social disparities in late-life disability and cognitive impairment. In other research, he is investigating the cumulative and interactive effects of racial background and life-course socio-economic disadvantage in subclinical disease and disability in older adults. He is an active member in professional organizations in the fields of gerontology, epidemiology, and behavioral medicine, and serves on the editorial board of several scientific journals in these disciplines.

Pubmed List of Publications

Projects:
Social epidemiology
Epidemiology of aging
Health disparities
Biological mechanisms
Longitudinal data analysis methods