Professor, Epidemiology
Director, Center for Integrative Approaches to Health Disparities
Director, Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health
University of Michigan

Biography

Ana Diez-Roux, MD, PhD, is a professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health in the School of Public Health, a research professor in the Survey Research Center in the Institute for Social Research, and director of the Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars Program at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Diez Roux has been an international leader in the investigation of the social determinants of health, the application of multilevel analysis in health research, and the study of neighborhood health effects. Her research areas include social epidemiology and health disparities, environmental health effects, urban health, psychosocial factors in health, and cardiovascular disease epidemiology. Recent areas of work include social environment-gene interactions and the use of complex systems approaches in population health.

Current externally funded research projects led by Dr. Diez Roux include the Center for Integrative Approaches to Health Disparities; Neighborhoods and Cardiovascular risk in a Multi-ethnic cohort; Stress, gene-environment interactions, and cardiovascular disease; and applications of systems approaches to study neighborhood health effects.

Dr. Diez Roux serves on numerous review and advisory committees and was awarded the Wade Hampton Frost Award for her contributions to public health by the American Public Health Association. She was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2009.

Recent Work

Complex Systems Thinking and Current Impasses in Health Disparities Research