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Project Description
Around the turn of the century, Americans’ health began to decline. The first project investigates the gender and racial differences in the long-term cohort trend in age-specific and cause-specific mortality, physiological status, mental health, cognitive functioning, and health behaviors (International Journal of Epidemiology 2019; American Journal of Epidemiology 2021; The Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences 2021). I find that for all gender and racial groups, physiological dysregulation has increased continuously from Baby Boomers through late-Gen X and Gen Y. Drug use is the predominant cause of elevated mortality among Baby Boomers while an innate physiological deterioration is the driving force behind the worsening health profiles of late-Gen X and Gen Y. Regarding cognitive functioning, it has been improving from the Greatest Generation to Late Children of Depression and War Babies, but then declines significantly beginning with Early-Baby Boomers and continuing into Mid-Baby Boomers. This pattern is observed universally across genders, race/ethnicities, education, occupation, income, and wealth quartiles. I have attempted to understand the causes of this unfavorable health trend through medical expansion, income inequality, and health behaviors (Journal of Health and Social Behavior 2018; Social Science & Medicine 2022; American Journal of Epidemiology 2021). Some work takes a life-course perspective and investigates the early-life and adulthood factors across multiple domains and scales behind this worsening health trend (Population Research and Policy Review 2021; Social Science & Medicine 2023) and the contextual socioeconomic, environmental and policy determinants. The second project focuses on understanding the role of mental health, health behaviors, socioeconomic conditions, and demographic mechanisms in the trend of racial and socioeconomic health disparities (Demography 2026; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2024; Demographic Research 2020, 2025; Population Research and Policy Review 2023; Social Science Research 2024; Social Science & Medicine 2012).
Publications
Zheng, Hui. 2026. “Dynamic Contributions of Chronic Diseases to The Widening Educational Gap in Disability and Mortality, 2002-2018: A Research Note.” Demography.
Zheng, Hui, Yoonyoung Choi, and Taehyun Ethan Kim. 2025. “Uncovering the Underlying Causes for the Narrowing, Stalling, and Widening Black-White Mortality Gap from 2000 to 2022 in the United States.” Demographic Research 52(18): 535-558.
Zheng, Hui, and Yoonyoung Choi. 2024. “Reevaluating the “Deaths of Despair” Narrative: Racial/Ethnic Heterogeneity in the Trend of Psychological Distress-Related Death.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121(8): e2307656121.
Zheng, Hui, Yao Lu, and Man Yao. 2024. “Emerging Health Disparities among College Graduates: Understanding the Health Consequences of Education-Occupation Mismatch.” Social Science Research 120: 103015.
Zheng, Hui, Jonathan Dirlam, Yoonyoung Choi, and Linda George. 2023. “Understanding the Health Decline in Boomers to Millennials.” Social Science & Medicine 337: 116282.
Choi, Yoonyoung, and Hui Zheng. 2023. “Onset and Cessation of Smoking: Temporal Dynamics and Racial Difference in Educational Smoking Disparities among Women.” Population Research and Policy Review 42: 84.
Brady, David, Ulrich Kohler, and Hui Zheng. 2023. “Novel Estimates of Mortality Associated with Poverty in the U.S.” The Journal of the American Medical Association: Internal Medicine 183(6): 618-619.
Zheng, Hui, Yoonyoung Choi, Jonathan Dirlam, and Linda George. 2022. “Rising Childhood Income Inequality and Declining Americans’ Health.” Social Science & Medicine 303: 115016.
Zheng, Hui, and Paola Echave. 2021. “Are Recent Cohorts Getting Worse? Trends in U.S. Adult Physiological Status, Mental Health, and Health Behaviors across a Century of Birth Cohorts.” American Journal of Epidemiology 190(11): 2242-2255.
Zheng, Hui, Jonathan Dirlam, and Paola Echave. 2021. “Divergent Trends in the Effects of Early-Life Factors on Adult Health.” Population Research and Policy Review 40(5): 1119-1148.
Zheng, Hui. 2021. “A New Look at Cohort Trend and Underlying Mechanisms in Cognitive Functioning.” The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 76(8): 1652-1663.
Zheng, Hui. 2020. “Unobserved Population Heterogeneity and Dynamics of Health Disparities.” Demographic Research 43: 1009-1048.
Zang, Emma, Hui Zheng, Yang Claire Yang, and Kenneth C Land. 2019. “Recent Trends in U.S. Mortality in Early and Middle Adulthood: Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Inter-Cohort Patterns.” International Journal of Epidemiology 48(3): 934-944.
Zheng, Hui and Linda K. George. 2018. “Does Medical Expansion Improve Population Health?” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 59(1): 113-132.
Zheng, Hui, Yang Yang and Kenneth C Land. 2016. “Age-Specific Variation in Adult Mortality Rates in Developed Countries.” Population Research and Policy Review 35: 49-71.
Zheng, Hui. 2015. “Losing Confidence in Medicine in an Era of Medical Expansion?” Social Science Research 52: 701-715.
Zheng, Hui, and Linda K. George. 2012. “Rising U.S. Income Inequality and the Changing Gradient of Socioeconomic Status on Physical Functioning and Activity Limitations, 1984-2007.” Social Science & Medicine 75(12): 2170-82.
Zheng, Hui. 2012. “Do People Die from Income Inequality of A Decade Ago?” Social Science & Medicine 75(1): 36-45.
Zheng, Hui, and Kenneth C Land. 2012. “Composition and Decomposition in U.S. Gender-Specific Self-Reported Health Disparities, 1984-2007.” Social Science Research 41(2): 477-88.
Zheng, Hui, Yang Yang, and Kenneth C Land. 2011. “Variance Function Regression in Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort Models, with Applications to the Study of Self-Reported Health.” American Sociological Review 76(6): 955-83.
Zheng, Hui. 2009. “Rising U.S. Income Inequality, Gender, and Individual’s Self-Rated Health, 1972-2004.” Social Science and Medicine 69(9): 1333-42.
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