Overview

The CESR / VU Amsterdam Center for the Study of Health Inequality (CSHI) aims to support, disseminate and communicate research on the causes of health inequality.

CSHI is housed within the Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR) at the University of Southern California (USC) and the Economics Department of Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. Topics of interest to CSHI are the substantial disparities in health, human capital (e.g., education), and economic outcomes between socioeconomic groups; the role of early childhood endowments, circumstances, and parental investments in explaining later-life health and socioeconomic disparities. An important focus of the center is to make use of recent advances in genetics to inform economic analyses, such as for example, studies of gene-by-environment (GxE) interplay in influencing health outcomes, such as unhealthy behaviors, mortality, late-life cognition, cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s and related dementias.

CSHI aims to develop integrated approaches to these issues, developing economic theories to explain empirical findings and make predictions and conducting empirical structural- as well as reduced-form analyses. CSHI brings together researchers from various disciplines within the University of Southern California’s and VU Amsterdam research communities as well as distinguished researchers from outside USC and VU Amsterdam, in such fields as economics (of health, human capital, and labor), epidemiology, psychology, demography, gerontology, public health, biology, and genetics. CSHI seeks to stimulate collaboration and communication between CSHI researchers and develop an infrastructure for its members and the broader research community. For example, we run a social-science genetics seminar / journal club series that is entirely online (Zoom) allowing researchers in Europe and the US to participate (for details, and if you would like to join, see below).

CSHI also seeks to inform policymakers and the general public to raise awareness and assist policymaking. CSHI members actively pursue sources of funding for the center, such as from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Netherlands Science Foundation (NWO), to support its activities. Initial support was provided by CESR and by a National Institute on Aging K02 award (K02 AG042452).

 

Research

Social-Science Genetics Seminars

Welcome to the Social-Science Genetics Seminars (SSGS) at USC’s Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR) and the department of Economics at Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. The SSGS provides an informal setting to discuss relevant papers in social-science genetics (typically presented by an author or sometimes reviewed by a club member). We are entirely based online, using Zoom as our platform, and our members are located across the U.S. and Europe. Our meetings are typically once a month on Thursday at 9 am Pacific Time in the first or second week of the month. The series is jointly organized by Brian Finch, Titus Galama, Patrick Turley and Pam Tyler (all at CESR) and hosted by the CESR/VU Amsterdam Center for the Study of Health Inequality (CSHI) and the CESR Behavioral and Health Genomics Center (BHG). If you are interested in joining our mailing list, please contact Titus Galama.

Team

Director, Center for the Study of Health Inequality

Senior Economist, CESR

Co-Director, Center for the Study of Health Inequality

Director, CESR

 

Co-Director, Center for the Study of Health Inequality

Co-Director, USC Schaeffer Center

Marina Aguiar Palma

Research Associate, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

PhD Candidate, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Lyydia Alajääskö

Research Associate, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Economist, CESR 

Economist, CESR 

Research Scientist, CESR

Sam Cole

Associate Professor, University of Michigan

Research Scientist, CESR

Anna Gotti

PhD Candidate, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Senior Economist, CESR

Associate Economist, CESR

Project Specialist, CESR

Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Center Administrative Assistant, Center for the Study of Health Inequality

Center Administrative Assistant, CESR East

Sjoerd van Alten

Research Associate, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Kim Zandvliet-Oerlemans

Project Manager, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

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Contact Us

Center for the Study of Health Inequality

To learn more or join our mailing list or to join our Zoom Social-Science Genetics Seminars Journal Club, please contact our Director, Titus Galama.