SCHOLARS

Current Scholars

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RWJ HSSP Cohort 9 Scholars - 2011-2013

Natalie Crawford received her PhD in Epidemiology from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in May 2011. Natalie’s dissertation examined the association between various forms of social discrimination and risky social network relationships among illicit drug users in New York City. This dissertation proposes a plausible explanation for persistent racial/ ethnic disparities in HIV prevalence despite lower individual risk taking behaviors among racial/ ethnic minorities. She argues that it is not necessarily how many sexual and drug use risk behaviors one engages in, but with whom the risk behaviors are performed with, that influences HIV risk and disease transmission. Natalie holds an extensive amount of experience in primary data collection, community based participatory research and community interventions. She has worked at both the New York Academy of Medicine and Columbia University as a Project Director over several federally funded grants that focus on understanding and improving health outcomes among illicit drug users. As a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar, Natalie intends to expand on her dissertation work by integrating a more sociologically-driven perspective to understanding how discrimination influences material risks (e.g., low education, lack of access to health care) and resources (e.g., personal physician access, health knowledge) in one’s social network that have the ability to influence health behaviors and health outcomes. She also hopes to explore the intersection of contextual neighborhood features and gentrification on social network risk structures to better understand racial/ ethnic disparities in health.

Corina Graif is a sociologist whose research addresses questions related to urban inequality, crime, neighborhood effects, migration/immigration, and racial/ethnic disparities in health. She received her MA and PhD from Harvard University. Her dissertation explores how the urban geography of inequality shapes the pathways of opportunity for public housing residents in five US cities. She makes the case that locational attainment and neighborhood effects can be better understood when simultaneously accounting for the wider spatial and network context within which neighborhoods are embedded. Based on survey, census, and experimental longitudinal studies, she investigates how spatial inequality, institutional density, and social capital interact in shaping adult and youth outcomes such as mental health, obesity, and delinquency. Corina won a Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Her work has been published by the Russell Sage Foundation, in Social Psychology Quarterly, American Behavioral Scientist, Homicide Studies, and in Research on Occupational Stress and Well Being. Her projects have been awarded the Howard T. Fischer Prize for Excellence in GIS and recognized by the ASA Community and Urban Sociology Section. As a Health & Society Scholar, Corina will examine the implications of migration flows, neighborhoods, and spatial mismatch for individual and collective wellbeing. She will investigate the socio-spatial, structural, and biological interactions that produce and reproduce racial and ethnic disparities in health, crime, and related outcomes. Corina Graif

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RWJ HSSP Cohort 8 Scholars - 2010-2012

Margaret Hicken received her doctorate in public health in May 2010 from the University of Michigan. Through her dissertation, she investigated the interactive role of social and environmental factors in black-white hypertension disparities. Using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), she found that black but not white Americans exhibit a positive association between blood lead and blood pressure, and that this disparity in the effect of lead is not due to higher levels of blood lead in black Americans. Rather, she found that psychosocial factors and social disadvantage explain the stronger effect.

As an RWJ Health & Society Scholar, Maggie is exploring two lines of interdisciplinary research in psychosocial factors and black-white health disparities. First, she is building on her dissertation work on the interaction between social and environmental factors. Specifically, she is exploring the role of social disadvantage and psychosocial stress in heightened susceptibility to the harmful health effects of air pollution. Second, she is beginning her empirical exploration into novel approaches to stress measurement in population surveys. Maggie is examining hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysfunction through the resulting effects at its target sites in numerous ways including loss of cortisol-effect relation and DNA methylation.

Aaron Mauck is a historian and ethnographic researcher interested in the evolution of political, institutional and epidemiological responses to chronic disease.  His dissertation examined the development of diabetes management practices over the last century, exploring the consequences of changing diagnostic and risk factor criteria for the way in which the disease was addressed by clinical specialists and public health advocates.  In his previous work, he has examined the history of health education strategies, the history of chronic disease morbidity and mortality studies, and the development of practice-centered techniques for optimizing cost, quality, and coverage in healthcare using evidence-based medicine.  Aaron plans to continue his research on disease management as a Health and Society Scholar, undertaking a historical study of the dynamic relationship between changing epidemiological methods of disease assessment and targeted public health interventions.  By exploring the ways in which specific chronic diseases have been politically, economically, and clinically approached over time, Aaron hopes to develop new tools for disease management that are historically informed by past efforts to align professional expectations with patient experiences.   Aaron received his Ph.D. in the History of Science from Harvard University in 2010.  He also holds an MA in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego, and a BA in Anthropology from Reed College.

Julianna Pacheco received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Pennsylvania State University in May 2010. Julie’s dissertation, “Dynamic Public Opinion and Policy Responsiveness in the American States,” investigates the functioning of democracy in the 50 US states. The analysis, made possible by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant, applies Bayesian small area estimation techniques to generate valid and reliable public opinion time series for each state. She finds that the preferences of ordinary citizens play a critical part in why states enact certain policies at particular times. As a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at the University of Michigan, Julie will expand her dissertation to the area of anti-smoking legislation across the states. She plans to pay particular attention to the ways in which public opinion towards smoking bans becomes more (or less) supportive after anti-smoking legislation is passed. In addition, she anticipates exploring the way in which states vary in their attention to health policies and how that variation influences the spread of policies across time.

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RWJ HSSP Cohort 7 Scholars - 2009-2011

Hedy Lee received her PhD in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009. Hedy was also awarded an Interdisciplinary Certificate in Health Disparities from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health and School of Medicine Program on Ethnicity, Culture and Health Outcomes. Her dissertation investigated the relationship between social disadvantage and obesity and physical activity outcomes using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Using a dynamic longitudinal model, she examined the impact of social disadvantage in adolescence on patterns of obesity and physical activity across the transition to young adulthood, a period when adult lifestyle behaviors are solidified and major racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities become apparent. As a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at the University of Michigan, Hedy plans to investigate how built environments differ by neighborhood socioeconomic status, and how particular aspects of the built environment differentially affect the physical activity and food choices of males and females and different racial/ethnic groups. She also plans to explore how obesity in adolescence influences important lifecourse outcomes in adulthood, such as marriage, educational, employment and fertility.

Neil Mehta received his PhD in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania in 2009. His dissertation research has focused on the association between obesity and mortality in the United States. Neil has found that mortality attributable to obesity is far smaller than that of smoking, which challenges previous findings suggesting that rising obesity will stall long-standing mortality improvements in the United States. He is conducting ongoing research into the possible shifting association between obesity and mortality since 1970s. Neil has also examined the contextual determinants of obesity. In one published paper, he investigated the association between the restaurant environment and weight status in the United States. Neil’s other major area of research pertains to the health of non-Hispanic U.S. immigrants. He has found that immigrants from the former Soviet Republics display considerably higher levels of disability and poorer overall health compared to other major U.S. immigrant groups and to native-born white Americans, which is a finding that has not received attention previously. As a Health & Society Scholar, Neil aims to help reconcile conflicting evidence on the effect of obesity on mortality by investigating a wide range of current data and evidence. He is also interested in investigating the behavioral determinants of adult mortality and disability in the United States and comparing obesity’s effect on healthy life expectancy versus overall life expectancy. Neil plans to continue to research the determinants of health among U.S. immigrants with an emphasis on integrating biological and contextual data. Neil holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and a BA from Oberlin College.

Kristin Turney received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania in August 2009. Grounded in social stratification theory and the life course perspective, her research investigates intra- and inter-generational social inequalities in health and wellbeing. In particular, she pays attention to the complex, dynamic role of the family in creating or exacerbating inequalities, as well as the consequences of these inequalities for children and families. In her dissertation, Growing up with Depressed Parents: Social Pathways to Disadvantaged Outcomes in Early Childhood, she examined the collateral consequences of parental depression, a potentially critical source of childhood disadvantage, for young children’s cognitive, behavioral, and health outcomes. Current research projects include the collateral consequences of mass imprisonment for family life; the heterogeneous association between romantic relationships and health in early adulthood; and how health inequalities contribute to the reproduction of disadvantage in early childhood.

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