Rising health challenges in the U.S.

Around the turn of the century, Americans’ health began to decline – why?

Project Director: Hui Zheng

This project investigates the gender and racial differences in the long-term cohort trend in age-specific and cause-specific mortality, physiological status, mental health, and health behaviors (International Journal of Epidemiology 2019; American Journal of Epidemiology 2021). It finds that for all gender and racial groups, physiological dysregulation has increased continuously from Baby Boomers through late-Gen X and Gen Y. Drug use is the predominant cause of elevated mortality among Baby Boomers while an innate physiological deterioration is the driving force behind the worsening health profiles of late-Gen X and Gen Y.

Hui Zheng has attempted to understand the causes of this unfavorable health trend through medical expansion, income inequality, and health behaviors (Journal of Health and Social Behavior 2018; Social Science & Medicine 2022; American Journal of Epidemiology 2021). Ongoing work takes a life-course perspective and investigates the early-life and adulthood factors across multiple domains and scales behind this worsening health trend (Population Research and Policy Review 2021; Social Science & Medicine 2023) and the contextual socioeconomic, environmental and policy determinants.