Noreen Goldman

Last updated
Noreen Goldman
Alma mater New York University
Harvard University
Scientific career
Institutions Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Princeton University
Thesis The demography of kin  (1977)

Noreen Goldman is an American social scientist who is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of Demography and Public Affairs at Princeton University. She studies social and economic factors and how they impact adult health. She was elected a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2024.

Contents

Early life and education

Goldman studied mathematics at New York University. [1] She moved to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health for her doctoral research, where she studied the demography of kin. [2]

Research and career

Goldman has spent her entire career at Princeton University, where she was made an Endowed Professor in 2007. [3] Her research combines demographic and epidemiological investigations into the impact of social and economic factors on adult health. Her early work considered the impact of marital status on health and mortality, revealing that widowed men had poorer life expectancies than widowed women. [4] Goldman analyzed the quality of data from the World Fertility Survey, which provided her with useful experience in survey design. She designed and led large-scale population surveys that investigate the causes of illness for women and children in rural communities. [5] She created an event history calendar to understand the timelines of maternal and child health in Guatemala, and investigated the social effects of health in Taiwan. She worked with cardiologists and molecular biologists to understand the cardiac health of children born in the 1990s, revealing that Black and Hispanic patients had considerably lower Life's Essential 8 scores than their white counterparts. [6]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Goldman studied the changing life expectancies of different groups in the United States. [7] She found that life expectancy of Hispanic Native Americans decreased by four years from 2019. [8] She demonstrated that the life expectancy of African American and Latino populations reduced by 3 – 4 times that of white people, and that the pandemic would reverse ten years of progress made toward closing gaps in life expectancy. [9] She went on to show that Filipino men had the largest decline in life expectancy of all Asian American groups. [10]

Awards and honors

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Life expectancy</span> Measure of average lifespan in a given population

Human life expectancy is a statistical measure of the estimate of the average remaining years of life at a given age. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth. This can be defined in two ways. Cohort LEB is the mean length of life of a birth cohort and can be computed only for cohorts born so long ago that all their members have died. Period LEB is the mean length of life of a hypothetical cohort assumed to be exposed, from birth through death, to the mortality rates observed at a given year. National LEB figures reported by national agencies and international organizations for human populations are estimates of period LEB.

Health equity arises from access to the social determinants of health, specifically from wealth, power and prestige. Individuals who have consistently been deprived of these three determinants are significantly disadvantaged from health inequities, and face worse health outcomes than those who are able to access certain resources. It is not equity to simply provide every individual with the same resources; that would be equality. In order to achieve health equity, resources must be allocated based on an individual need-based principle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disability-adjusted life year</span> Measure of disease burden

Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) are a measure of overall disease burden, expressed as the number of years lost due to ill-health, disability, or early death. It was developed in the 1990s as a way of comparing the overall health and life expectancy of different countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Men's health</span> Broad subject that encompasses all facets of mens health

Men's health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, as experienced by men, and not merely the absence of disease. Differences in men's health compared to women's can be attributed to biological factors, behavioural factors, and social factors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hispanic paradox</span> Epidemiological finding

The Hispanic paradox is an epidemiological finding that Hispanic Americans tend to have health outcomes that "paradoxically" are comparable to, or in some cases better than, those of their U.S. non-Hispanic White counterparts, even though Hispanics have lower average income and education, higher rates of disability, as well as a higher incidence of various cardiovascular risk factors and metabolic diseases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rural health</span> Interdisciplinary study of health and health care delivery in rural environments

In medicine, rural health or rural medicine is the interdisciplinary study of health and health care delivery in rural environments. The concept of rural health incorporates many fields, including wilderness medicine, geography, midwifery, nursing, sociology, economics, and telehealth or telemedicine.

Eileen M. Crimmins is the AARP Chair in Gerontology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology of the University of Southern California. Her work focuses on the connections between socioeconomic factors and life expectancy and other health outcomes.

The social determinants of health in poverty describe the factors that affect impoverished populations' health and health inequality. Inequalities in health stem from the conditions of people's lives, including living conditions, work environment, age, and other social factors, and how these affect people's ability to respond to illness. These conditions are also shaped by political, social, and economic structures. The majority of people around the globe do not meet their potential best health because of a "toxic combination of bad policies, economics, and politics". Daily living conditions work together with these structural drivers to result in the social determinants of health.

The weathering hypothesis was proposed to account for early health deterioration as a result of cumulative exposure to experiences of social, economic, and political adversity. It is well documented that minority groups and marginalized communities suffer from poorer health outcomes. This may be due to a multitude of stressors including prejudice, social alienation, institutional bias, political oppression, economic exclusion, and racial discrimination. The weathering hypothesis proposes that the cumulative burden of these stressors as individuals age is "weathering", and the increased weathering experienced by minority groups compared to others can account for differences in health outcomes. In recent years, the biological plausibility of the weathering hypothesis has been investigated in studies evaluating the physiological effects of social, environmental and political stressors among marginalized communities. This has led to more widespread use of the weathering hypothesis as a framework for explaining health disparities on the basis of differential exposure to racially based stressors. Researchers have also identified patterns connecting weathering to biological phenomena associated with stress and aging, such as allostatic load, epigenetics, telomere shortening, and accelerated brain aging.

Eran Shor is an Israeli-Canadian sociologist and a Professor of Sociology. He is the William Dawson Scholar at McGill University. His research interests include the causes and effects of political conflict and violence, ethnicity and nationalism, the sociology of health, and the media coverage of women and ethnic minorities. He focuses on the relationship between states’ counterterrorist policies and their respect for human rights and civil liberties. His research methods include computational analysis of big data, cross-national regression analysis and meta-analyses, as well as in-depth qualitative methods and content analysis.

Jennifer Beam Dowd is an American social scientist who is a Professor of Demography and Population Health and deputy director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford. Her research considers the social determinants of health and the relationship between infections and immune function. She is a member of Those Nerdy Girls, an all-woman team of public health researchers who are relaying COVID-19 information as part of Dear Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unequal impact on different racial and ethnic groups in the United States, resulting in new disparities of health outcomes as well as exacerbating existing health and economic disparities.

White Americans, as the largest racial group in the United States, have historically had better health outcomes than other oppressed racial groups in America. However, in recent years, the scholarly discourse has switched from recognition of the immense positive health outcomes of white Americans towards understanding the growing persistence of negative outcomes unique to this racial group. Scholars have discussed the effects of racial prejudice and its negative effect on health outcomes to not only those being oppressed but also those being given privileges. In addition to the effects of living in a racialized society, white Americans have the highest rate of suicide and lifetime psychiatric disorders of any other ethnicity or racial category. In conjunction with these psychiatric issues, the population presents higher rates of alcohol usage alongside lower levels of psychological flourishing. Given this information, the health status of white Americans has gained increasing importance due to the differences in health outcomes between white Americans and white people from other parts of the world.

Ana Abraído-Lanza is an American behavioral psychologist who is a professor at the New York University. Her research considers the cultural and structural factors that impact mental and physical health amongst Latino communities. She serves as Vice Dean of the School of Public Health.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Kingori</span> British African sociologist

Patricia Kingori is a British Kenyan sociologist who is a professor at the University of Oxford. Her research considers the experiences of frontline health workers around the world. She is particularly interested in misinformation and pseudoscience. In 2015, Kingori was included on the Powerlist.

Violence against women in Uganda is an issue that negatively affects various aspects of women's lives. COVID-19 has worsened the current condition for women facing domestic violence. Perceived changing social standards and cultural norms indicate power dynamics which is a primary cause of violence carried out against women. Refugee women in Uganda are uniquely subjugated as they have the least access to gaining social or monetary capital. However, there has been recent legislation aimed at improving the quality of life for Ugandan women and refugee women in Uganda.

Patricia Priest is a New Zealand public health scientist and epidemiologist who is Professor of Public Health in Medicine at the University of Otago. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Priest served as an advisor to the New Zealand Ministry of Health. She was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2010. As of 2024 Priest is the Acting Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Division of Health Sciences at the university.

Michelle van Ryn is an American health researcher who is the Grace Phelps Distinguished Professor at the Oregon Health & Science University. Her research considers the social determinants of health and equity in healthcare. She demonstrated that physicians' perceptions of patients was impacted by their socio-demographic status. She is the founder of Diversity Sciences, a consultancy company who provide evidence-based training for organizations looking to eliminate bias.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michaela Benzeval</span> British sociologist

Michaela Jane Benzeval CBE is a British sociologist, Professor and Director of Understanding Society at the University of Essex. She was appointed a Commander of the British Empire in the 2024 New Year Honours.

References

  1. "Noreen Goldman Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). www.princeton.edu. Retrieved June 3, 2024.
  2. "The demography of kin | WorldCat.org". search.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2024-05-09.
  3. 1 2 "Noreen Goldman – Population Association of America". www.populationassociation.org. Retrieved 2024-05-12.
  4. Goldman, Noreen; Korenman, Sanders; Weinstein, Rachel (June 1995). "Marital status and health among the elderly". Social Science & Medicine. 40 (12): 1717–1730. doi:10.1016/0277-9536(94)00281-W. PMID   7660185.
  5. "Noreen Goldman". ngoldman.scholar.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2024-05-12.
  6. Lloyd-Jones, Donald M; Allen, Norrina B; Goldman, Noreen; Stein, James H; Marma, Amanda M; Tracy, Russell; Ning, Hongyan; Hou, Lifang; Zheng, Yinan; Joyce, Brian; Van Horn, Linda; Notterman, Daniel (2023-11-07). "Abstract 15375: Status of Cardiovascular Health and Early Carotid Artery Changes in Contemporary Young Adults From Disadvantaged Social Backgrounds: The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS)". Circulation. 148 (Suppl_1). doi:10.1161/circ.148.suppl_1.15375. ISSN   0009-7322.
  7. Lemonides, Alex (2022-04-09). "While life expectancy is rebounding in parts of the world, white deaths drive a further U.S. drop". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2024-05-12.
  8. Goldman, Noreen; Park, Sung S.; Beltrán-Sánchez, Hiram (2023). "Life expectancy among Native Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic: estimates, uncertainty, and obstacles". American Journal of Epidemiology. doi:10.1093/aje/kwad244 . Retrieved 2024-05-12.
  9. Andrasfay, Theresa; Goldman, Noreen (2021-02-02). "Reductions in 2020 US life expectancy due to COVID-19 and the disproportionate impact on the Black and Latino populations". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 118 (5). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2014746118 . ISSN   0027-8424. PMC   7865122 . PMID   33446511.
  10. Park, Sung S.; Goldman, Noreen; Beltrán-Sánchez, Hiram; Andrasfay, Theresa (December 2023). "The impact of COVID-19 on life expectancy among four Asian American subgroups". SSM – Population Health. 24: 101480. doi:10.1016/j.ssmph.2023.101480. ISSN   2352-8273. PMC   10485147 . PMID   37692836.
  11. "2024 NAS Election". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2024-05-09.