Health in Social Context

Jennifer D. Roberts is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology, School of Public Health and a Faculty Associate at the Maryland Population Research Center at the University of Maryland College Park. Her research and teaching interests focus on the relationship between the built environment and physical activity in addition to its impact on obesity and other public health outcomes.

Dr. Richardson has a Joint Appointment in the Department of Anthropology (Anthropology of Health) and a Secondary Appointment in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Division of Preventive Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine. In 2019, Dr. Richardson was named Joel and Kim Feller Professor in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences.

Rashawn Ray's work addresses three key areas: the determinants and consequences of self-evaluated social class, men’s treatment of women, and how racial stratification structures social life. He is currently examining how racially mixed and segregated communities influence physical activity levels across racial/ethnic groups and contribute to healthy lifestyles and obesity rates.

Dr. Robin Puett completed post-doctoral training with the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her research interests are in the areas of environmental and spatial exposure assessment and epidemiology. She is using large cohort studies and population-based data to explore the association of air pollution exposures with health outcomes and modification by diet and other lifestyle factors. She is also using these and other data to examine spatial associations between environmental context (e.g. built environment) and health outcomes.

Lauren Porter earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from University at Albany-SUNY in 2012, where she specialized in criminology and social demography. Dr. Porter is largely interested in topics that revolve around punishment. In particular, she investigates questions related to incarceration, including the collateral consequences of imprisonment and how population dynamics shape incarceration trends. Her current work also explores how offenders interact with neighborhood environments to choose crime locations and targets.

My research focuses on social determinants of environmental contaminant exposures and health risks, especially among minority populations, and designing policy solutions to address these disparities. Additional areas of research and teaching interests include using exposure biomonitoring for policy analysis, cumulative risk assessment, health impact assessment, environmental health indicator development, children's environmental health and environmental health of minority populations.

Susan W. Parker is a professor in the School of Public Policy. Previously, she was a professor of economics at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City. Her research focuses principally on education and health in developing countries and in particular on the evaluation of programs and public policies. She has particular interest in the areas of conditional cash transfer programs and targeting.

Dr. Julie Park is currently Associate Professor of Sociology and the Asian Americans Studies Program at the University of Maryland. Prior to joining the Maryland faculty in 2008, she was a research assistant professor in the School of Policy, Planning, and Development and the Associate Director of the Population Dynamics Research Group at the University of Southern California.

One of my ongoing interests is in developing quantitative spatial analytical methods that allow us to investigate how the population and its characteristics are unevenly distributed across space and may vary depending upon the geographic context.

Dr. Nguyen uses a variety of different data sources (including Big Data) and approaches (including quantitative and qualitative research methods) to advance our understanding of social determinants of health. Dr. Nguyen also leads the interdisciplinary research collaborative, Big Data for Health Equity (BD4HE). BD4HE comprises faculty, trainees, and students from universities across the U.S committed to advancing theories, methods, and findings related to the use of Big Data for health equity research.