Archives: Affiliates

Hyoshin Kim is a quantitative, multidisciplinary health researcher with over 20 years of experience developing and conducting research projects in the field of public health for bio-behavioral, clinical, and population-policy applications. Trained as an economist with an emphasis on quantitative data modeling and statistical analysis, she has conducted research on health and social behaviors, and on policy analysis. Her past work includes: examining policy/program effects on individuals’ health behavior; developing healthcare quality indicators and measures based on healthcare data; investigating the relationship between drug use and entrance/exit of the federal welfare program among low income women; examining the role of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic factors on healthcare utilization for chronic diseases; examining the race gap in children’s test scores due to testing conditions at home and to interviewers’ characteristics in national survey data; estimating intervention effects of social-psychological programs; and investigating e-cigarette use behaviors and their related measurement issues. Her work involves multivariate analytical techniques and econometric modeling of large national data sets such as the NLSY, Add Health, and MEPS. For the past decade, she has been a key member of the Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science (TCORS NIH/FDA grant) leading studies as Principal Investigator/Co-Investigator and Lead Statistician on tobacco use behavior to inform tobacco regulatory science. As Co-Director of TCORS Data Management and Statistics Core for the University of Maryland/Battelle, she led Statistics Core coordinating and providing expertise on research design, measurement, database, and statistical analysis. Currently, she is assessing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid’s Bundled Payments for Care Improvement initiatives using Medicare claims data to estimate program effects on outcomes such as healthcare costs and readmission rates. She is also examining how built and social environments influence childhood obesity and racial/ethnic disparities using the Healthy Communities Study’s expanded database of diverse measures. She holds a PhD in Policy Analysis and Management from Cornell University.

Gavin W. Hougham, PhD, is currently Director of Development at the Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation.  Dr. Hougham, a sociologist, brings over three decades of work experience across academic, industry, non-profit, and government sectors. He was formerly faculty at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine, where his research often borrowed advanced data analysis tools from other disciplines (genomics, computer science). While at UChicago, as Deputy Director of the Center for Health and the Social Sciences, he taught and ran undergraduate, graduate, and professional training programs in medical sociology, health policy, and health outcomes research.

Dr. Hougham has published and worked on a variety of health and medicine-focused topics, including geriatrics and various aspects of Alzheimer’s disease; using hospital electronic health record data to analyze sequences and recovery trajectories of communicable disease; the potential of AI to improve the health of older adults; preparing the healthcare workforce for an aging society.

Prior to joining the Fisher Center Foundation, he has held appointments at New York Medical College (Valhalla); Battelle Memorial Institute (Seattle); the John A. Hartford Foundation (NYC); and Wisconsin’s Division of Public Health (Milwaukee).

Dr. Hougham graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from SUNY, Brockport, earned Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from the University of Chicago, and was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology.  He also serves on the Boards of Directors of the Hospice of Westchester and Hudson Valley Stream Conservancy.  When time allows, he can be found making furniture in his basement shop for his family, visiting museums, or learning something new.

Dr. Greek has more than 25 years of experience in the design, conduct, and analysis of health-related research. Her work includes research in health outcomes, cancer prevention, cancer surveillance, demography, health related behaviors, health service use and health disparities based on race/ethnicity, language, nativity, and socioeconomic status.

Recently she has led three CDC contracts to conduct research on cancer surveillance and understanding cancer prevention and risk factors.

• Cancer Incidence Study of Marines/Navy Personnel and Civilian Employees Exposed to Contaminated Drinking Water at USMC Base Camp Lejeune (CIS). The CIS is an ongoing retrospective cohort study to evaluate the impact of exposure to toxic chemicals in the drinking water at U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, NC, to an unexposed comparison cohort from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, CA. From the 1950s through the mid-1980s, drinking water at Camp Lejeune was contaminated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The CIS uses Personally Identifiable Information (PII) for 536,601 cohort members to conduct data linkages and collect the following information: (a) addresses, updated names, and vital status from TransUnion and LexisNexis; (b) vital status from the Social Security Administration (SSA) Data for Epidemiological Researchers; (c) cause of death from the National Death Index (NDI); and, (d) all primary invasive and in situ bladder cancer incidences from 55 state, territorial and federal cancer registries. ATSDR will use these data to assess the impact of exposure at Camp Lejeune on cancer incidence and mortality.
• Case Investigation of Cervical Cancer (CICC) Study. The CICC Study seeks to understand why women continue to get a disease that is largely preventable with appropriate screening and follow-up which allow for detection and treatment of cervical neoplasia prior to invasion. The study worked with three central cancer registries to identify women recently diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer. Women were asked to complete surveys to elicit information on barriers and facilitators to screening and care, and to consent to medical chart abstraction. Medical charts in the 5 years prior to diagnosis were reviewed for screening history, follow-up and treatment procedures, and any additional information related to diagnosis. Online surveys were also completed by members of a cervical cancer survivor network. Results were presented at national conferences and manuscripts are underway.
• Reassessment of Monitoring the Impact of a Prophylactic HPV vaccine on HPV Types in Cancers: Using Tissues from Central Cancer Registries (HPV Typing Study). This study seeks to assess the preliminary impact of the HPV vaccine in select cancers and to establish a surveillance protocol for continued monitoring. Tumor samples from cervical cancer and other HPV-associated cancers were gathered by central cancer registries and shipped to the CDC HPV Lab for HPV genotyping analysis. Individual-level registry data and pathology reports were also gathered. This project was the second wave of data collection for the HPV Typing Study. Results were presented at national conferences and manuscripts are underway.

Other recently completed research includes: evaluation of an educational intervention to increase cervical cancer screening intervals; examination of knowledge, attitudes and beliefs related to Pap and HPV testing among underserved patients and their providers; evaluation of clinic-level interventions to increase colon cancer screening rates; investigation of factors associated with alcohol use trajectories among older Americans; assessment of physician practices and attitudes related to prostate cancer screening; and support for the reprioritization efforts of the Community Preventive Services Task Force and support for the website update of the Community Guide Branch.

Anna Zamora-Kapoor earned her Ph.D. and Masters in Sociology from Columbia University, and her B.A. in Sociology from the University of Barcelona. She conducted her graduate studies with three multi-year awards from the Caja Madrid Foundation, the Talentia Fellowship, and the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellowship at Columbia. Anna was also a pre-doctoral Visiting Scholar at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, where she worked with Prof. Sara Curran. After a position as Postdoctoral Senior Fellow at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and a member of the University of Washington’s Partnerships for Native Health, she became an Assistant Research Professor for the Initiative for Research and Education to Advance Community Health (IREACH) with Washington State University, and an Affiliate Assistant Professor at the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology and Department of Medical Education and Clinical Sciences at Washington State University. Her research seeks to reveal the social determinants of obesity, their variability across racial and ethnic groups, and the role of food distribution programs in the reproduction of health disparities.

Anna recently became the Principal Investigator of a pilot grant which leverages data from the Cerebrovascular Disease and its Consequences in American Indians (CDCAI) study to examine sex differences in the associations between obesity and cognitive performance among CDCAI participants, the potential role of body fat distribution, and the mediation effects of vascular brain injury (Native Alzheimer’s Disease Resource Center for Minority Aging Research – Research Education Center (NIA)). 

For more information please see Anna’s CV.

Emilio Zagheni is Director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) and Affiliate Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington. Previously, he served as Training Director of CSDE. He received his Ph.D. in Demography (2010) and M.A. in Statistics (2008) from U.C. Berkeley. Zagheni is best known for his work on combining digital trace data and traditional sources to track and understand migrations and to advance population science. In 2016 he received the Trailblazer Award for Demographic Analysis from the European Association for Population Studies for his role in developing the field of Digital and Computational Demography. Currently, he is a core leader of the training program Population, Health and Data Science in partnership with CSDE and other leading institutions at the forefront of demographic research

Hendrik Wolff is Professor of Economics at Simon Fraser University, Canada. He is co-editor of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management and on the editorial council of the new journal, Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (JAERE).

·         He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agricultural engineering from the Universities of Göttingen and Bonn respectively. He received a second master and a PhD in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a recipient of a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, as well as a grant from the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). He was a visiting professor at Resources for the Future, as well as at LMU Munich, University of Cologne and at IZA, Bonn.

·         Hendrik’s main research is in environmental economics, working at the intersection of transportation, air pollution, energy and health. This includes the economic causes and consequences of air pollution; the ”value of time;” the impact of energy conservation policies on electricity consumption; cost benefit analysis of the clean air act and its effects on health; the interactions between climate, local prices, wages and “quality of life; and the economics of Daylight Saving Time. He also developed new econometric estimators for large supply and demand systems that are used in agriculture and energy. He has conducted research projects in Ecuador, Germany, Mexico, Australia, Bangladesh, Ghana, England, Chile and the United States. Hendrik is a Faculty Affiliate of the UW Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, an IZA Research Fellow, and a CESIfo Research Network Affiliate.

·         Hendrik’s work has impact on both academia and policy. He won the 2009 Ralph C d’Arge and Allen V. Kneese Award for Outstanding Publication, which is awarded annually for the Best Paper in Environmental and Resource Economics. His research has led to important policy changes by the United Nations and the World Bank on the measurement of indices (the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Ease of Doing Business Index). His work is discussed on television (e.g., ABC News) and international media (e.g., The Economist, The Wall Street Journal). He has successfully obtained external funding from organizations such as the NSF, as well as CSSS and the Royalty Research Fund. In addition, he has been the chair for six PhD students and has trained many Honors students, many of whom have won multiple awards. The job placements of Hendrik’s students are detailed in his CV. He has also consulted for the U.S. Department of Energy and for the President of the World Bank on important policy issues related to his research.

Suzanne Withers is a spatial demographer/population geographer whose research applies spatial demographic analysis and geographic information science to investigate spatial mobility over the life course. Specifically, over the past few years she has investigated the intersection of family dynamics, housing, labor market transitions and geographic mobility at various scales ranging from local to national. Much of this research uses the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to link household dynamics with spatial mobility longitudinally. This body of research has established considerable demographic variation in housing cost adjustments associated with family migration thereby contributing to our understanding of the geographic variation in the migration behavior of dual-earner households. There is clear evidence that spatial differentials in the cost of living, particularly when measured by the ratio of housing costs to income, contribute significantly to our understanding of specific origin-destination migration flows across the United States. This research also assessed the synchronicity of fertility events, labor force participation, and the scales of mobility ranging from residential mobility to long-distance migration. Another part of this research interrogated the goodness of fit between moving intentions and mobility events, longitudinally. Her other area of research falls within the general field of housing demography. She studies the intergenerational aspects of housing wealth, home ownership, and location. Understanding the dynamic relative location of parents and their adult children and grandchildren contributes to our understanding of the geography of care and the geodemographics of aging. Her work has established significant differences in the scale of spatial relations among the generations between the European and the American context. While considerable research has addressed these questions in Europe, little attention has been given to these issues in the United States. Her work has been published in Demographic Research, Population, Space and Place, Urban Geography, Geographical Analysis, Environment and Planning A, and the UNESCO-EOLSS volume Demography (English and Chinese). Withers has keen interest in methods of spatial demography. In 2010 she was a visiting scholar at The School of Sociology and Population Studies, Renmin University of China where she trained their students in spatial demography using geographic information science.

Sherry Willis’s research focuses on lifespan cognitive development, adult development and aging, cognitive interventions, midlife risks of cognitive impairment, and everyday functioning. Specifically, it addresses two questions regarding adult cognition and the role of cognition in maintenance of independent functioning by the elderly: The first question focuses on the impact of midlife health and functioning on risk of cognitive impairment and dementia in old age. It is well recognized that there is a lengthy preclinical phase prior to diagnosis of dementia. Midlife health and functioning may increase the risk of dementia, or alternatively, may be a critical period for development of protective factors which delay or moderate the impact of cognitive impairment. Dr. Willis, as co-director of the Seattle Longitudinal Study has a NIH MERIT award to utilize longitudinal data to examine midlife factors contributing to cognitive functioning in old age. Midlife risk factors include genetic variables (APOE e4), early onset of cardiovascular disease, memory decline in midlife, and family history of dementia. Midlife protective factors include a cognitively challenging work environment, physical and intellectual engagement, family environment, and maintenance of cognitive abilities. The second project focuses on the potential of cognitive interventions to maintain independent functioning in old age. For the past 10 years, Dr. Willis has been a PI on ACTIVE, an NIA funded national behavioral intervention clinical trial. Dr. Willis developed one of the cognitive intervention programs employed in the trial. Five years after training, elderly in the intervention arm maintained a higher level of cognitive functioning on the abilities trained and reported less difficulty in performing activities of independent living compared to controls. Dr. Willis has published in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Psychology and Aging, Behavioral Medicine, Generations, Journal of International Neuropsychology Society, European Journal of Ageing. The Seattle Longitudinal Study maintains a website with a public access data set and study publications here.

Nathalie Williams’ research primarily focuses on migration patterns, during periods of armed conflict, natural disasters and climate change, and social change in general. A key aspect of this work is the fact that even during periods of intense conflict or drastic environmental change, many, if not most, people do not migrate. This is contrary to what is generally assumed and is poorly addressed in the literature. Williams’ work seeks to develop theoretical and empirical understandings of why some people migrate and many do not. In addition to migration, she has also published work examining marriage and fertility patterns during conflict. Incorporating all these demographic patterns during periods of disasters, Williams is now working on two projects that use agent-based models to investigate the macro-level population trends that can result from these micro-level behavioral changes during the recent armed conflict in Nepal and during climatic disasters in Northeast Thailand. Other recent work addresses values and beliefs, how they influence the likelihood of migration and destination choice to different world regions, and how they change through the process of migration. Because migration and conflict are inherently difficult subjects about which to collect data and are also difficult to measure, Williams is also involved in developing new data collection strategies and conceptualization methods. For example, she is working with a team that has successfully collected panel data from a representative sample of Nepali migrants who are currently living in more than 100 countries around the world. Her work is primarily based in Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, and the Persian Gulf. She has worked extensively with the Chitwan Valley Family Study from Nepal and continues to be involved in new data collection projects at that location. She has published in Demography, Social Science Research, Population Studies, International Migration, Journal of Official Statistics, Research on Aging, and AIDS Care.

Marcia Weaver, PhD, is a Research Professor of Health Metrics Sciences and Global Health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. She specializes in cost-effectiveness analysis and has published 82 peer-reviewed articles. At the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, she is leading the research team on cost-effectiveness analyses of interventions to reduce the burden of disease.

Dr. Weaver was Principal Investigator for the Integrated Infectious Disease Capacity Building Evaluation (IDCAP), which was awarded to Accordia Global Health Foundation by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. IDCAP was a cluster randomized trial implemented by the Infectious Diseases Institute in Uganda to estimate the cost-effectiveness of two methods for building capacity for the prevention and treatment of HIV, malaria, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. In the United States, she has published on cost-effectiveness of interventions for people with HIV and chronic mental illness and substance abuse as part of the HIV/AIDS Treatment Adherence, Health Outcomes, and Cost Study, and on a joint campaign to promote influenza and pneumococcal vaccines.

Dr. Weaver also has extensive experience with evaluating the effects of clinical training programs in Botswana, Indonesia, Namibia, South Africa, Thailand, and the Caribbean region. She is proficient with a broad range of methods for measuring the quality of health care and outcomes, such as patient exit interviews, patient service utilization interviews, Medical Outcomes Study short form (SF)-36, observation of clinical practice, standardized patients, facility records and health management information system, clinical vignettes (sometimes referred to as case scenarios), and population-based surveys of mortality among children under 5 years.

Dr. Weaver holds a PhD in economics and an MA in Public Policy from the University of Chicago. Prior to joining the UW faculty, Professor Weaver served as a long-term advisor on health system reform to ministries of health in Niger and Central African Republic.