Deputy Director, Professor of Demography and Population Health

Jenn Dowd is a quantitative social and health scientist with interdisciplinary training in demography, economics, epidemiology and infectious disease. Her research seeks to understand how social and biological processes interact over the life course and how social factors “get under the skin” to impact health. She has studied how socioeconomic status shapes immune function and risk of infections as well as links between infections and chronic diseases of aging. On-going projects include understanding the social determinants of the human microbiome and the causes of stalling life expectancy in the US and UK as Principal Investigator of the ERC Consolidator Project MORTAL. She is currently researching social and demographic factors related to COVID-19, and is also part of an all-female team of PhD health scientists interpreting and curating COVID-19 and other science for a general audience at Those Nerdy Girls.

She is a highly cited scholar who has published over 100 articles in journals in interdisciplinary journals such as the Proceedings of National Academies of Sciences, Nature Human Behaviour, the American Journal of Epidemiology, and Social Science and Medicine. She has been Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator on multiple large grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health on topics including the role of infections and immunity in health inequalities and social and population science approaches to the microbiome. She is a former elected member of the Population Association of America (PAA) Board of Directors and on the Editorial Board of the flagship journal Demography. In 2022, she was awarded the Clifford C. Clogg Award for Mid-Career Achievement by the PAA.

Dr. Dowd received her Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2004 in Demography and Economics from the Office of Population Research. She did postdoctoral training in Epidemiology as a Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar in the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health at the University of Michigan. She has previously held positions in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King's College London, and the CUNY School of Public Health/CUNY Institute for Demographic Research (CIDR), City University of New York.

 

Publications

Sunday, 01 January 2012
Hale, L. et al. (2012) “DOES FIBRINOGEN MEDIATE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LONG SLEEP DURATION AND CORONARY HEART DISEASE?”, in SLEEP, pp. A317 - A317.
Sunday, 01 January 2012
Dowd, J., Palermo, T. and Aiello, A. (2012) “Family poverty is associated with cytomegalovirus antibody titers in U.S. children.”, Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 31(1), pp. 5–10.
Tuesday, 01 November 2011
Dowd, J., Goldman, N. and Weinstein, M. (2011) “Sleep duration, sleep quality, and biomarkers of inflammation in a Taiwanese population.”, Annals of epidemiology, 21(11), pp. 799–806.
Saturday, 01 October 2011
Zajacova, A. and Dowd, J. (2011) “Reliability of self-rated health in US adults.”, American journal of epidemiology, 174(8), pp. 977–983.
Friday, 01 July 2011
Dowd, J. and Todd, M. (2011) “Does self-reported health bias the measurement of health inequalities in U.S. adults? Evidence using anchoring vignettes from the Health and Retirement Study.”, The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, 66(4), pp. 478–489.
Sunday, 01 May 2011
Dowd, J. and Zajacova, A. (2011) “Response to Commentary ‘About the Role of Socioeconomic Position on the Relation Between Objective Health Status and Self-Rated Health: A Rapid Commentary on Dowd’s Article’”, Annals of Epidemiology, 21(5), pp. 388–389.
Sunday, 01 May 2011
Olden, K. et al. (2011) “Discovering how environmental exposures alter genes could lead to new treatments for chronic illnesses.”, Health affairs (Project Hope), 30(5), pp. 833–841.
Tuesday, 01 March 2011
Clayton, E. et al. (2011) “The impact of bisphenol A and triclosan on immune parameters in the U.S. population, NHANES 2003-2006.”, Environmental health perspectives, 119(3), pp. 390–396.
Tuesday, 01 February 2011
Simanek, A. et al. (2011) “Seropositivity to cytomegalovirus, inflammation, all-cause and cardiovascular disease-related mortality in the United States.”, PloS one, 6(2), p. e16103.
Tuesday, 01 February 2011
Dowd, J. et al. (2011) “Deeper and wider: income and mortality in the USA over three decades.”, International journal of epidemiology, 40(1), pp. 183–188.
Saturday, 01 January 2011
Dowd, J. et al. (2011) “Cytomegalovirus antibodies in dried blood spots: a minimally invasive method for assessing stress, immune function, and aging.”, Immunity & ageing : I & A, 8(1), p. 3.
Friday, 01 October 2010
Dowd, J., Zajacova, A. and Aiello, A. (2010) “Predictors of inflammation in U.S. children aged 3-16 years.”, American journal of preventive medicine, 39(4), pp. 314–320.
Wednesday, 01 September 2010
Do, D. et al. (2010) “Hopelessness, depression, and early markers of endothelial dysfunction in U.S. adults.”, Psychosomatic medicine, 72(7), pp. 613–619.
Sunday, 01 August 2010
Roberts, E. et al. (2010) “Roberts et al. respond to ‘Human CMV, inflammation, and mortality’.”, American journal of epidemiology, 172(4), pp. 375–376.
Tuesday, 01 June 2010
Zajacova, A. et al. (2010) “Consistency and precision of cancer reporting in a multiwave national panel survey.”, Population health metrics, 8, p. 20.
Sunday, 01 November 2009
Dowd, J. and Aiello, A. (2009) “Socioeconomic differentials in immune response.”, Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.), 20(6), pp. 902–908.
Thursday, 01 October 2009
Dowd, J., Simanek, A. and Aiello, A. (2009) “Socio-economic status, cortisol and allostatic load: a review of the literature.”, International journal of epidemiology, 38(5), pp. 1297–1309.
Monday, 01 June 2009
Simanek, A., Dowd, J. and Aiello, A. (2009) “Persistent pathogens linking socioeconomic position and cardiovascular disease in the US.”, International journal of epidemiology, 38(3), pp. 775–787.
Sunday, 01 February 2009
Zajacova, A., Dowd, J. and Aiello, A. (2009) “Socioeconomic and race/ethnic patterns in persistent infection burden among U.S. adults.”, The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences, 64(2), pp. 272–279.
Thursday, 01 January 2009
Goldman, N. and Dowd, J. (2009) “Considering the inclusion of metabolic and cardiovascular markers in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.”, Biodemography and social biology, 55(2), pp. 140–158.
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Jennifer Beam Dowd

PhD
Deputy Director, Professor of Demography and Population Health
This is the alt text
Email
Links
Website
Twitter
LinkedIn
Google Scholar
BlueSky

Jenn Dowd is a quantitative social and health scientist with interdisciplinary training in demography, economics, epidemiology and infectious disease. Her research seeks to understand how social and biological processes interact over the life course and how social factors “get under the skin” to impact health. She has studied how socioeconomic status shapes immune function and risk of infections as well as links between infections and chronic diseases of aging. On-going projects include understanding the social determinants of the human microbiome and the causes of stalling life expectancy in the US and UK as Principal Investigator of the ERC Consolidator Project MORTAL. She is currently researching social and demographic factors related to COVID-19, and is also part of an all-female team of PhD health scientists interpreting and curating COVID-19 and other science for a general audience at Those Nerdy Girls.

She is a highly cited scholar who has published over 100 articles in journals in interdisciplinary journals such as the Proceedings of National Academies of Sciences, Nature Human Behaviour, the American Journal of Epidemiology, and Social Science and Medicine. She has been Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator on multiple large grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health on topics including the role of infections and immunity in health inequalities and social and population science approaches to the microbiome. She is a former elected member of the Population Association of America (PAA) Board of Directors and on the Editorial Board of the flagship journal Demography. In 2022, she was awarded the Clifford C. Clogg Award for Mid-Career Achievement by the PAA.

Dr. Dowd received her Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2004 in Demography and Economics from the Office of Population Research. She did postdoctoral training in Epidemiology as a Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar in the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health at the University of Michigan. She has previously held positions in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King's College London, and the CUNY School of Public Health/CUNY Institute for Demographic Research (CIDR), City University of New York.

 

Publications

Sunday, 01 January 2012
Hale, L. et al. (2012) “DOES FIBRINOGEN MEDIATE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LONG SLEEP DURATION AND CORONARY HEART DISEASE?”, in SLEEP, pp. A317 - A317.
Sunday, 01 January 2012
Dowd, J., Palermo, T. and Aiello, A. (2012) “Family poverty is associated with cytomegalovirus antibody titers in U.S. children.”, Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 31(1), pp. 5–10.
Tuesday, 01 November 2011
Dowd, J., Goldman, N. and Weinstein, M. (2011) “Sleep duration, sleep quality, and biomarkers of inflammation in a Taiwanese population.”, Annals of epidemiology, 21(11), pp. 799–806.
Saturday, 01 October 2011
Zajacova, A. and Dowd, J. (2011) “Reliability of self-rated health in US adults.”, American journal of epidemiology, 174(8), pp. 977–983.
Friday, 01 July 2011
Dowd, J. and Todd, M. (2011) “Does self-reported health bias the measurement of health inequalities in U.S. adults? Evidence using anchoring vignettes from the Health and Retirement Study.”, The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, 66(4), pp. 478–489.
Sunday, 01 May 2011
Dowd, J. and Zajacova, A. (2011) “Response to Commentary ‘About the Role of Socioeconomic Position on the Relation Between Objective Health Status and Self-Rated Health: A Rapid Commentary on Dowd’s Article’”, Annals of Epidemiology, 21(5), pp. 388–389.
Sunday, 01 May 2011
Olden, K. et al. (2011) “Discovering how environmental exposures alter genes could lead to new treatments for chronic illnesses.”, Health affairs (Project Hope), 30(5), pp. 833–841.
Tuesday, 01 March 2011
Clayton, E. et al. (2011) “The impact of bisphenol A and triclosan on immune parameters in the U.S. population, NHANES 2003-2006.”, Environmental health perspectives, 119(3), pp. 390–396.
Tuesday, 01 February 2011
Simanek, A. et al. (2011) “Seropositivity to cytomegalovirus, inflammation, all-cause and cardiovascular disease-related mortality in the United States.”, PloS one, 6(2), p. e16103.
Tuesday, 01 February 2011
Dowd, J. et al. (2011) “Deeper and wider: income and mortality in the USA over three decades.”, International journal of epidemiology, 40(1), pp. 183–188.
Saturday, 01 January 2011
Dowd, J. et al. (2011) “Cytomegalovirus antibodies in dried blood spots: a minimally invasive method for assessing stress, immune function, and aging.”, Immunity & ageing : I & A, 8(1), p. 3.
Friday, 01 October 2010
Dowd, J., Zajacova, A. and Aiello, A. (2010) “Predictors of inflammation in U.S. children aged 3-16 years.”, American journal of preventive medicine, 39(4), pp. 314–320.
Wednesday, 01 September 2010
Do, D. et al. (2010) “Hopelessness, depression, and early markers of endothelial dysfunction in U.S. adults.”, Psychosomatic medicine, 72(7), pp. 613–619.
Sunday, 01 August 2010
Roberts, E. et al. (2010) “Roberts et al. respond to ‘Human CMV, inflammation, and mortality’.”, American journal of epidemiology, 172(4), pp. 375–376.
Tuesday, 01 June 2010
Zajacova, A. et al. (2010) “Consistency and precision of cancer reporting in a multiwave national panel survey.”, Population health metrics, 8, p. 20.
Sunday, 01 November 2009
Dowd, J. and Aiello, A. (2009) “Socioeconomic differentials in immune response.”, Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.), 20(6), pp. 902–908.
Thursday, 01 October 2009
Dowd, J., Simanek, A. and Aiello, A. (2009) “Socio-economic status, cortisol and allostatic load: a review of the literature.”, International journal of epidemiology, 38(5), pp. 1297–1309.
Monday, 01 June 2009
Simanek, A., Dowd, J. and Aiello, A. (2009) “Persistent pathogens linking socioeconomic position and cardiovascular disease in the US.”, International journal of epidemiology, 38(3), pp. 775–787.
Sunday, 01 February 2009
Zajacova, A., Dowd, J. and Aiello, A. (2009) “Socioeconomic and race/ethnic patterns in persistent infection burden among U.S. adults.”, The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences, 64(2), pp. 272–279.
Thursday, 01 January 2009
Goldman, N. and Dowd, J. (2009) “Considering the inclusion of metabolic and cardiovascular markers in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.”, Biodemography and social biology, 55(2), pp. 140–158.

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