Jennifer Karas Montez

Gerald B. Cramer Faculty Scholar of Aging Studies
Director of the Policy, Place, and Population Health Lab
Faculty Associate, Aging Studies Institute
Aging Studies Institute

Degree

Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 2011

Specialties

Social demography, social determinants of health, women''s health, spatial patterns and trends in mortality

Personal Website

http://www.jennkarasmontez.com

Courses

SOC 101: Introduction to Sociology
SOC 714: Intermediate Social Statistics
SOC 813: Advanced Social Statistics 

Biography

Jennifer Karas Montez received her PhD in Sociology with a Demography specialization at the University of Texas at Austin in 2011. Afterwards she spent two years at the Harvard School of Public Health as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar, and then two years at Case Western Reserve University as an Assistant Professor of Sociology. 

Her research examines the large and growing inequalities in adult mortality across education levels and geographic areas within the United States. She is particularly interested in why the growing inequalities have been most troublesome among women. Her current work on this topic blends perspectives from social demography and feminist geography to investigate the role of U.S. states in shaping women’s and men’s mortality in unique ways. In another line of research she examines whether and why experiences in childhood, such as poverty and abuse, have enduring consequences for health during later life.

Publications

Jennifer Karas Montez , Anna Zajacova, and Mark D. Hayward. “Contextualizing the Social Determinants of Health: Disparities in Disability by Educational Attainment across US States.” American Journal of Public Health 107(7):1101-1108.

Jennifer Karas Montez , Mark D. Hayward, and Douglas. A Wolf. 2017. “Do U.S. States’ Socioeconomic and Policy Contexts Shape Adult Disability?” Social Science & Medicine 178:115-126.

Jennifer Karas Montez , Joyce Bromberger, Karen Matthews, Sioban Harlow, and Howard Kravitz. 2016. “Life Course Socioeconomic Status and Metabolic Syndrome among Midlife Women.” Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences 71(6):1097-1107.

Jennifer Karas Montez , Anna Zajacova, and Mark D. Hayward. 2016. “Explaining Inequalities in Women’s Mortality between U.S. States.”  SSM - Population Health 2:561-571.

Jennifer Karas Montez and Kaitlyn Barnes. 2016. “The Benefits of Educational Attainment for U.S. Adult Mortality: Are they Contingent on the Broader Environment?” Population Research and Policy Review 35(1):73-100.

Jennifer Karas Montez , Pekka Martikainen, Hanna Remes, and Mauricio Avendano. 2015. “Work-Family Context and the Longevity Disadvantage of U.S. Women.” Social Forces 93(4):1567-1597.

Jennifer Karas Montez and Esther Friedman (Guest Co-Editors), February 2015, vol 127, Special Issue of Social Science & Medicine entitled, “Educational Attainment and Adult Health: Contextualizing Causality.”

Jennifer Karas Montez and Anna Zajacova. 2014. “Why is Life Expectancy Declining among Low-Educated Women in the United States?” American Journal of Public Health 104(1):e5-e7

Jennifer Karas Montez , Erika Sabbath, M. Maria Glymour, and Lisa F. Berkman. 2014. “Trends in Work-Family Context among U.S. Women by Education Level, 1976 to 2011.” Population Research and Policy Review 33(5):629-648.

Jennifer Karas Montez and Mark D. Hayward. 2014. “Cumulative Childhood Adversity, Educational Attainment, and Active Life Expectancy among U.S. Adults.” Demography 51(2):413-435.

Jennifer Karas Montez and Lisa F. Berkman. 2014. “Trends in the Educational Gradient in Mortality among U.S. Adults from 1986 to 2006: Bringing Regional Context into the Explanation.”  American Journal of Public Health 104(1):e82-e90.

Jennifer Karas Montez. 2013. “The Socioeconomic Origins of Physical Functioning among Older U.S. Adults.” Advances in Life Course Research 18(4):244-256.
*Won the 2013 Senior Service America Junior Scholar Award of the Gerontological Society of America.

Jennifer Karas Montez and Anna Zajacova. 2013. “Explaining the Widening Education Gap in Mortality among U.S. White Women.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 54(2):165-181.
*Won the 2012 Senior Service America Junior Scholar Award of the Gerontological Society of America and the 2013 IPUMS Research Award.

Jennifer Karas Montez and Anna Zajacova. 2013. “Trends in Mortality Risk by Education Level and Cause of Death among White Women in the United States from 1986 to 2006.” American Journal of Public Health 103(3):473-479.

Jennifer Karas Montez , Robert A. Hummer, and Mark D. Hayward. 2012. “Educational Attainment and Adult Mortality in the United States: A Systematic Analysis of Functional Form.” Demography 49(1):315-336.

Jennifer Karas Montez, Robert A. Hummer, Mark D. Hayward, Hyeyoung Woo, and Richard G. Rogers. 2011. “Trends in the Educational Gradient of U.S. Adult Mortality from 1986 through 2006 by Race, Gender, and Age Group.” Research on Aging 33(2):145-171.

Jennifer Karas Montez , Mark D. Hayward, Dustin C. Brown, and Robert A Hummer. 2009. “ Why is the Educational Gradient in Mortality Steeper for Men?” Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences 64(5):625-634.

Jennifer Karas Montez and Mark D. Hayward. 2011. “Early Life Conditions and Later Life Mortality.” Chapter 9 in the International Handbook of Adult Mortality, Eds. RG Rogers and EM Crimmins. Springer Publishers.

Jennifer Karas Montez , Jacqueline L. Angel, and Ronald J. Angel. 2009. “Employment, Marriage, and the Inequality in Health Insurance among Mexican-Origin Women.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 50(2):132-148.

Recent Invited Lectures

2017

"The Role of SES in Shaping Disparities in Morbidity and Mortality in Midlife." Invited by the Committee on Population of the National Academics of Science, Engineering and Medicine to present at an expert meeting on "Socioeconomic Status and Increasing Mid-Life Mortality" in Washington DC.

"U.S. States and the Health of Women." Presented at the 2017 Presidential Symposium on Society & Health, SUNY Upstate Medical University.

2016

“Why are Educational Differences in Disability Larger in Some US States than Others?” Presented at the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis, SUNY-Albany.

“The Life Course Perspective.” Invited by the Committee on Population and National Institute on Aging to present at an expert meeting on “Health Disparities Across the Life Course” in Washington DC.

2015

“Trends and Inequalities in Women’s Mortality across the US.” Invited by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine to present at expert meeting on Women’s Health (Raising the Bar—The Health of American Women: A National Perspective on Women’s Health) in Washington DC.

“Live Long and Prosper: The Impact of Education on Mortality.” Invited by the PAA Government and Public Affairs Committee to speak at a Capitol Hill briefing in Washington DC. 

“Using an Intersectionality Frame to Understand Health Inequalities.” Invited Panel, Annual Meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, New Orleans, Louisiana.

“When Geography and Gender Collide: Explaining Variation in Adult Mortality among U.S. States” Presented at the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania, the Institute for Population Research at Ohio State University, and the Center for Demography and Economics at the University of Wisconsin.

2014

“Mitigating Childhood Adversities through Educational Attainment.” Conference on Education and Health sponsored by the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research.

“Secrets to a Long Life: Location, Location, Location.” Science Café Cleveland, sponsored by the CASE Chapter of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society.

 “Women’s Mortality in Southern U.S. States.” Panel on Poverty and Health in the South, Annual Meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, Charlotte, North Carolina.

“Women and Education.” International Women’s Day, Turkish American Society of Ohio.

2013

“Diverging Trends in U.S. Women’s Health.” Population Studies and Training Center, Brown University.