National Academies Press: OpenBook
« Previous: Appendix: Contents, Critical Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life
Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2004. Understanding Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11036.
×

Biographical Sketches

NORMAN B. ANDERSON (Chair) is professor of health and social behavior at Harvard University. His research interests involve ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic disparities in health; the social, behavioral, and biological processes underlying them; and interventions to reduce such disparities. Until recently, Dr. Anderson was director of the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As the founding director of that office, he worked to promote and set priorities in behavioral and social science research and training throughout NIH, oversaw a tripling of the operating budget of the office, and organized funding initiatives totaling $90 million over 4 years. Dr. Anderson was previously at Duke University, where he studied the role of stress in the development of hypertension and directed the NIH-funded Exploratory Center for Research on Health Promotion in Older Minorities. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the Society of Behavioral Medicine, and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research and past president of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. He has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, with postdoctoral training in aging and psychophysiology from Duke University.

RODOLFO A. BULATAO served as staff director for most of the panel’s life. His research has covered psychosocial issues in population, fertility determinants, family planning program effectiveness, and program and reproductive health service costs. He previously directed the World Bank’s annual population projections and has worked on projections in various areas, including causes of death. He has also helped develop and evaluate

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2004. Understanding Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11036.
×

population projects in developing countries. Dr. Bulatao was previously affiliated with the East-West Center and the University of the Philippines. He served on the staff of the National Research Council’s Committee on Population in 1983-1985 and with its Working Group on Population Growth and Economic Development. He has an M.A. in sociology from the University of the Philippines and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.

EILEEN M. CRIMMINS is the Edna M. Jones professor of gerontology and sociology at the University of Southern California and director of the USC/UCLA Center for Biodemography and Population Health. Her work has concentrated on trends and differentials in population health. She has also worked to develop measures of healthy life as indicators for assessing population health trends and differentials. Her current work is on the role of biological factors in explaining racial/ethnic, educational, and income differentials in health. She has a Ph.D. in demography from the University of Pennsylvania.

DAVID V. ESPINO is a professor of family medicine and geriatrics and Vice Chair for Community Geriatrics in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He has authored over 100 publications dealing with clinical issues of Mexican American elders, and he serves as the director of the John A. Hartford Center of Geriatric Excellence, one of 23 such centers nationally. Dr. Espino is also a member of the National Advisory Council of the National Institute on Aging and a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Geriatrics Society. He is a graduate of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and completed a family medicine residency at Spohn-Memorial Medical Center in Corpus Christi and a geriatrics fellowship at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City and holds a certificate of added qualifications in geriatrics.

JAMES S. HOUSE is director of the Survey Research Center, professor in the Department of Sociology, and research scientist in the Survey Research Center of the Institute of Social Research and the Department of Epidemiology, all at the University of Michigan. His research has spanned such areas as social psychology, social structure and personality, psychosocial and socioeconomic factors in health and aging, survey research methods, and political sociology. Among his numerous publications are recent articles on understanding and reducing socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in health; income inequality and mortality; socioeconomic inequalities in health; and gender and the socioeconomic gradient in mortality. Dr. House is a member of the Institute of Medicine and a recipient of the Robert Wood

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2004. Understanding Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11036.
×

Johnson Foundation Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research. He has a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan.

JAMES S. JACKSON is the Daniel Katz distinguished university professor of psychology and professor of health behavior and health education at the University of Michigan. He is also director of the Center for Afro-American and African Studies and director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research, where he also directs the Program for Research on Black Americans, now in its 25th year. He has published numerous scientific articles and chapters in such areas as race and ethnic relations, health and mental health, adult development and aging, attitudes and attitude change, and black political behavior, and he has authored or coauthored several books and edited volumes. Dr. Jackson has chaired the Gerontological Society Task Force on Racial Minority Group Aging and is a past chair of the Behavioral and Social Science Section of the Gerontological Society of America. He has been a member of scientific review panels for such organizations as the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Cancer Institute, the Educational Testing Service, and the European Economic Community Study on Immigration and Racism. He is a past member of national advisory councils of the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Aging (NIA). He currently serves as a member of the NIA’s Board of Scientific Counselors and also chaired a recent panel on minority aging at the NIA. He received a Ph.D. in social psychology from Wayne State University.

CHRISTOPHER (SANDY) JENCKS is Malcolm Wiener professor of social policy at the Kennedy School at Harvard University. His recent research has dealt with changes in the material standard of living over the past generation, homelessness, welfare reform, the black-white test score gap, and poverty measurement. His books have covered inequality, the urban underclass, and the homeless. Dr. Jencks is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he serves on the editorial board of The American Prospect.

GERALD E. MCCLEARN is Evan Pugh professor and director of the Center for Development and Health Genetics in the College of Health and Human Development at Pennsylvania State University. Previously, he taught at Yale University, Allegheny College, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Colorado. At the University of Colorado he founded the Institute for Behavioral Genetics. Subsequently at Pennsylvania State University he served as associate dean for research and dean of the College of Health and Human Development. He was the founding head of the program in biobehavioral health and founding director of the Center for Development and Health Genetics. He has been involved for the past

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2004. Understanding Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11036.
×

15 years in large-scale studies of genetic and environmental influences on patterns and rates of aging in Swedish twins. He has been president of the Behavioral Genetics Association and he received a MERIT award from the National Institute on Aging in 1994. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin.

ALBERTO PALLONI is professor of demography at the Center for Demography and Ecology and in the Departments of Sociology and Preventive Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His primary research interests are the demography of health and mortality, population dynamics in developing countries, and demography of HIV/AIDS in Africa. He also works on mathematical demography and statistical methods. His works include papers on the demography of HIV/AIDS, the effects of economic crises on fertility and mortality, and research on socioeconomic determinants of health and mortality. He currently serves on the National Research Council’s Committee on Population and previously served on the Panel on Decennial Census Methodology. He has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Washington.

TERESA SEEMAN is professor of medicine and epidemiology in the Schools of Medicine and of Public Health at the University of California at Los Angeles. Her research focuses on the role in health and aging of sociocultural factors, specifically on the biological pathways involved. Recent publications have covered allostatic load and its health consequences, the effects of the social environment on neuroendocrine function, and how an unhealthy environment “gets under the skin.” Dr. Seeman was a member of the MacArthur Research Network on Successful Aging (1985-1995) and is currently a member of the MacArthur Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health. She was previously on the faculty of the Department of Epidemiology in the Yale School of Public Health and at the Andrus School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California. She received a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of California at Berkeley.

JAMES P. SMITH is the RAND chair in labor markets and demographic studies; previously, he directed RAND’s Labor and Population Studies Program. He has been closely involved since their inception in the design and operation of both the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) and Asset and Health Dynamics of the Oldest-Old (AHEAD). As chair of an advisory panel of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) extramural priorities for data collection in health and retirement economics, he authored a report outlining the thematic design for these new surveys and calling for NIA support. Subsequently, he served on the NIA Data Monitoring Committee for both surveys. He has written a number of papers on the quality of asset

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2004. Understanding Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11036.
×

data in both HRS and AHEAD and racial and ethnic differences in personal net worth, Social Security, and pension wealth. Dr. Smith is also a member of the National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and is the public representative appointed by the governor of California on the state board for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He has served on the National Advisory Board for the Poverty Institute and on the Population Research Committee at the National Institutes of Health. He has received the National Institutes of Health MERIT Award. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

EUGENIA WANG is professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the School of Medicine at the University of Louisville. Previously, she was professor of anatomy and cell biology and of neurology and neurosurgery at McGill University in Montréal, where she was also director of the Bloomfield Center for Research in Aging at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research. Dr. Wang has investigated the molecular mechanisms controlling the process of aging, at both cellular and organismic levels. Her recent work involves the investigation of gene-directed programs regulating the ontogeny of age-dependent diseases, and how genetic action in individual cells controls human longevity, integrating microarray technology, mathematical genomics, and pattern recognition theory to identify genetic and epigenetic factors as life-span determinants. She is chair of the biological science section of the Gerontological Society of America and has served as chair of the biological science section of the Canadian Association on Gerontology. She was also a member of the Minority Aging Ad Hoc Review Committee for the National Advisory Council on Aging. Dr. Wang received her B.S. from the National Taiwan University, her M.Sc. from Northern Michigan University, and her Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University.

DAVID R. WILLIAMS is professor of sociology and senior research scientist at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. His prior academic appointment was at Yale University. Dr. Williams is interested in social and psychological factors that affect health and especially in the trends and the determinants of socioeconomic and racial differences in mental and physical health. Currently, he is on the editorial board of five scientific journals. He also served on the Department of Health and Human Services National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, chairing its subcommittee on minority and other special populations. He has held such elected positions in professional organizations as secretary-treasurer of the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. He received an M.P.H. from Loma Linda University and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan.

Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2004. Understanding Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11036.
×
Page 156
Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2004. Understanding Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11036.
×
Page 157
Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2004. Understanding Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11036.
×
Page 158
Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2004. Understanding Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11036.
×
Page 159
Suggested Citation:"Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2004. Understanding Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life: A Research Agenda. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11036.
×
Page 160
Next: Index »
Understanding Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life: A Research Agenda Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $54.00 Buy Ebook | $43.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

As the population of older Americans grows, it is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. Differences in health by racial and ethnic status could be increasingly consequential for health policy and programs. Such differences are not simply a matter of education or ability to pay for health care. For instance, Asian Americans and Hispanics appear to be in better health, on a number of indicators, than White Americans, despite, on average, lower socioeconomic status. The reasons are complex, including possible roles for such factors as selective migration, risk behaviors, exposure to various stressors, patient attitudes, and geographic variation in health care.

This volume, produced by a multidisciplinary panel, considers such possible explanations for racial and ethnic health differentials within an integrated framework. It provides a concise summary of available research and lays out a research agenda to address the many uncertainties in current knowledge. It recommends, for instance, looking at health differentials across the life course and deciphering the links between factors presumably producing differentials and biopsychosocial mechanisms that lead to impaired health.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!