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Ming Wen Assistant Professor |
EDUCATION
Ph.D. The University of Chicago, 2003
M.S. The University of Chicago, 1999
M.A. The University of Chicago, 1996
B.S. Peking University, 1989
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Professor Wen joined the sociology faculty in July 2003. Her research interests center around how multilevel social environmental factors affect health-related outcomes throughout the life course.
She is currently working on several projects funded by the National Institutes of Health or private foundations. One project is to examine the effects of ethnicity, nativity, years in the U.S., and living in neighborhoods with high concentration of Asians on cancer risk factors in seven largest Asian American groups, using data from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) and Census data. She is also analyzing data from the National Survey of America’s Families (NSAF) to disentangle pathways that potentially contribute to the persistent link between race/ethnicity and health among American children and adolescents. Also using the NSAF, she is working on a study examining the association between religious participation and child well-being in low-income families. She recently started another project to explore social ecological determinants at the individual, family, school, and neighborhood level of health-detrimental behaviors among adolescents, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescents (Add Health). In a recently funded study, she examines how the physical features of the built environment and the social ecological characteristics of local neighborhoods uniquely, jointly, and interactively contributes to physical activity at the individual level, using data from the Census, the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods—Community Survey (PHDCN-CS), the Metropolitan Chicago Information Center Metro Survey (MCIC-MS), GIS-based data, and other administrative data in transportation, urban planning, and police report.
Wen M. 2008. “The effect of family structure on children’s health and well-being: Evidence from the 1999 National Survey of America’s Families” Journal of Family Issues: In press.
Wen M, Kandula N & Lauderdale DS. 2008. “Leisure-time walking in a multiethnic population: What difference does the neighborhood make?” Journal of General Internal Medicine:22(12):1674–1680.
Wen M, Browning CR & Cagney K. 2007. “A multi-level study of neighborhood environment and its relationship to physical activity in adulthood” Urban Studies:44(13): 1-18.
Wen M. 2007. “Racial and ethnic differences in general health status and limiting health conditions among American children: Parental reports in the 1999 National Survey of America’s Families” Ethnicity and Health:12(5):401-422.
Wen M, Hawkley L & Cacioppo J. 2006. “Objective and perceived neighborhood environment, individual SES and psychosocial factors, and self-rated health: An analysis of older adults in Cook County, Illinois” Social Science & Medicine 63(10): 2575-2590.
Wen M & Christakis NA. 2006. “Prospective effect of community distress and subcultural orientation on mortality following life-threatening diseases in later life”Sociology of Health and Illness 28(5):558-582.
Wen M & Christakis NA. 2005. “Neighborhood effects on post-hospitalization mortality: A population-based cohort study of the elderly in Chicago”Health Services Research 40(4):1108-1127.
Wen M, Cagney KC & Christakis NA. 2005. “Effect of specific aspects of community social environment on the mortality of individuals diagnosed with serious illness” Social Science & Medicine 61:1119-1134
Li Q & Wen M. (Equal authorship). 2005. “The immediate and lingering effects of armed conflict on adult mortality: A time-series cross-national analysis” Journal of Peace Research 42:471-492
-- Reprinted in The Demography of Armed Conflict edited by Brunborg H, Tabeau E & Urdal H. 2006. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer
Wen M, Browning CR & Cagney K. 2003. “Poverty, affluence, and income inequality: Neighborhood economic structure and its implications for health.” Social Science & Medicine 57:843-860.