Research

Research Interests

  • Social and environmental determinants of health inequalities across the life course.
  • Psychosocial stress, health behaviors, and biological pathways linking socioeconomic status to morbidity and mortality.
  • Child growth, nutrition, and development in low- and middle-income countries.
  • Evaluation of early childhood interventions and policies, including Head Start and related programs.
  • Advanced quantitative methods, including multilevel modeling, causal inference, mediation analysis, and distributional approaches.

My work focuses on how social structures, policy environments, and psychosocial mechanisms shape population health. I use rigorous quantitative methods—ranging from multilevel and causal models to distributional and mediation approaches— to understand when and how social and economic conditions translate into disparities in chronic disease, mental health, and mortality. Much of my research centers on early life environments and childhood interventions, as well as the role of psychosocial stress and related behavioral and biological pathways in producing and sustaining health inequities.

Work in Progress

Justin Rodgers, S.V. Subramanian, Ichiro Kawachi, David R. Williams.   Socioeconomic status, psychosocial stress, and all-cause mortality among middle- and older-age adults in the U.S. .   Working paper.
Justin Rodgers, Ichiro Kawachi, David R. Williams, S.V. Subramanian.   Domains of psychosocial stress and all-cause mortality: individual and cumulative effects among adults in the U.S. from 1995 to 2015. .   Working paper.

Selected Publications

Justin Rodgers, Becky A. Briesacher, Robert B. Wallace, Brian Breimeister, Daniel Kim.   County-level housing affordability in relation to risk factors for cardiovascular disease among middle-aged adults: the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. .   Health & Place. 2019;59:102194.
Justin Rodgers, Alexander V. Valuev, Yingjie Hswen, S.V. Subramanian.   Social capital and physical health: an updated review of the literature for 2007–2018. .   Social Science & Medicine. 2019;236:112360.
Justin Rodgers, Hwa-Young Lee, Rockli Kim, Nachiket Mor, S.V. Subramanian.   Geographic variation in caesarean delivery in India. .   Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology. 2022;36(1):92–103.

All Publications

Sun Yeop Lee, Rockli Kim, Justin Rodgers, S.V. Subramanian.   Assessment of the predictive power of a causal variable: an application to the Head Start Impact Study. .   SSM – Population Health. 2022;19:101223.
Sun Yeop Lee, Justin Rodgers, Rockli Kim, S.V. Subramanian.   Distributional effects on children’s cognitive and social-emotional outcomes in the Head Start Impact Study: a quantile regression approach. .   SSM – Population Health. 2022;18:101108.
Sun Yeop Lee, Rockli Kim, Justin Rodgers, S.V. Subramanian.   Assessment of heterogeneous Head Start treatment effects on cognitive and social-emotional outcomes. .   Scientific Reports. 2022;12:6411.
Anoop Jain, Justin Rodgers, Rockli Kim, S.V. Subramanian.   The relative importance of households as a source of variation in child malnutrition: a multilevel analysis in India. .   International Journal of Equity in Health. 2021;20:225.
Sun Yeop Lee, Rockli Kim, Justin Rodgers, S.V. Subramanian.   Treatment effect heterogeneity in the Head Start Impact Study: a systematic review of study characteristics and findings. .   SSM – Population Health. 2021;16:100916.
Justin Rodgers, Hwa-Young Lee, Rockli Kim, Nachiket Mor, S.V. Subramanian.   Geographic variation in caesarean delivery in India. .   Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology. 2022;36(1):92–103.
Anoop Jain, Justin Rodgers, Zhihui Li, Rockli Kim, S.V. Subramanian.   Multilevel analysis of geographic variation among correlates of child undernutrition in India. .   Maternal & Child Nutrition. 2021;17(3):e13197.
Sanjay K. Mohanty, Justin Rodgers, Ranjan Singh, Rajesh S. Mishra, Rockli Kim, Junaid Khan, Pranab Behera, S.V. Subramanian.   Morbidity compression or expansion? A temporal analysis of the age at onset of non-communicable diseases in India. .   GeroScience. 2021;43:329–343.
Sun Yeop Lee, Rockli Kim, Justin Rodgers, S.V. Subramanian.   Associations between subjective wellbeing and macroeconomic indicators: an assessment of heterogeneity across 60 countries. .   Wellbeing, Space and Society. 2020;1:100011.
Adolfo G. Cuevas, Thao Ho, Kristina Carvalho, Tamara Ho, Sheri W. Chan, Jennifer D. Allen, Rui Chen, Justin Rodgers, Ursula Biba, David R. Williams.   Discrimination and systemic inflammation: a critical review and synthesis. .   Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. 2020;89:465–481.
Justin Rodgers, Sujay Kakarmath, Vanessa Denis, Marta Encinas-Martin, S.V. Subramanian.   Association between numeracy and self-rated poor health in 33 high- and upper middle-income countries. .   Preventive Medicine. 2019;129:105872.
Justin Rodgers, Becky A. Briesacher, Robert B. Wallace, Brian Breimeister, Daniel Kim.   County-level housing affordability in relation to risk factors for cardiovascular disease among middle-aged adults: the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. .   Health & Place. 2019;59:102194.
Justin Rodgers, Alexander V. Valuev, Yingjie Hswen, S.V. Subramanian.   Social capital and physical health: an updated review of the literature for 2007–2018. .   Social Science & Medicine. 2019;236:112360.
Adolfo G. Cuevas, Thao Ho, Justin Rodgers, Danielle DeNufrio, Lindsey Alley, Jennifer Allen, David R. Williams.   Developmental timing of initial racial discrimination exposure is associated with cardiovascular health conditions in adulthood. .   Ethnicity & Health. 2019;26(7):1–17.
Susan L. Peters, Michael P. Grant, Justin Rodgers, John Manjourides, Cassandra A. Okechukwu, Jack T. Dennerlein.   A cluster randomized controlled trial of a Total Worker Health intervention on commercial construction sites. .   International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2018;15(11):2354.
Andrea L. Tan, Vaughan W. Rees, Justin Rodgers, Echezona Agudile, Nicole A. Sokol, Kristin Yie, Amy Sanders-Jackson.   Effects of exposure to anti-vaping public service announcements among current smokers and dual users of cigarettes and electronic nicotine delivery systems. .   Drug & Alcohol Dependence. 2018;188:364–370.