Jennifer Beam Dowd, Professor of Demography at University of Oxford
October 22, 2024, 5:10-6:10 PM, McLaughlin Atrium
American population health is on shaky ground. Decades of steady improvements in life expectancy have given way to stalls and even reversals since 2010. The U.S. is increasingly falling behind the life expectancy of other high-income countries. Besides headline grabbing increases in drug overdoses and other “deaths of despair,” more fundamental changes in deaths due to cardiovascular disease are playing a big role. Combined with the large mortality shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, guaranteed forward progress in life expectancy feels less certain. Why is the U.S. so unhealthy, despite being one of the richest countries in the world?
Cosponsors: Tuck Center for Health Care; Rockefeller Center; Tuck Undergraduate Programs
Please note: All events are in-person and will not be recorded.
About Jennifer
Jennifer Beam Dowd is Professor of Demography and Population Health at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford. Jenn is interested in how the economic and social world “gets under the skin” to impact our biology and health across the life course. This work has included deep dives into the biology of stress, infections and immune function, and the human microbiome. In her current 5-year European Research Council (ERC) project, she is exploring the reasons underlying stalling life expectancy in the US, UK, and Europe. Jenn also worked extensively on the demography and mortality impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as science communication through international media and as a founding member and Editor-in-Chief of the social media campaign Dear Pandemic/Those Nerdy Girls. She is a highly cited scholar who has published over 100 articles in interdisciplinary journals such as the Proceedings of National Academies of Sciences, Nature Human Behaviour, and the American Journal of Epidemiology. Jenn received her Ph.D. in Demography and Economics from Princeton University and did postdoctoral training in Epidemiology as a Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar at the University of Michigan.
About the Series
The Health, Wealth, and Sustainability (“Wicked Problems”) Series will immerse Tuck students and Dartmouth undergraduates in complex social problems and prepare them to be wise, decisive leaders. Each event during the academic year will feature an expert on a “wicked problem” in conversation with a Tuck faculty member.