Published on Oct. 23, 2018

Updated on Jan. 2, 2024

Eileen Avery’s research interests are centered on health disparities, social demography, crime and social control as public health concerns, and survey methodology. The importance of space and place is an overlapping focus across these interests. Past work examined the ways that income inequality, disorder, race-ethnic composition, social resources and so forth are associated with health and mortality in neighborhood context. In current informatics work Dr. Shyu, Hammer, and I, along with graduate students, examine ways that a big data geospatial approach can be applied to both traditional medical and survey data. Additional work uses data from two statewide population based surveys that my colleagues and I developed and fielded to examine the ways that health outcomes and aspects of public opinion relate to crime and social control (e.g. policing) across urban and rural spaces. Another project in the early stage of development will use restricted census data to examine the nuanced ways that income inequality matters for health at different levels of geography.