About The Author:
Belinda Needham, Ph.D., is currently Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. She received her bachelor’s degree in sociology from Texas A&M University and both her master’s and doctoral degrees in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation was honored with an award for the Best Dissertation in Mental Health from the American Sociological Association.
Dr. Needham completed postdoctoral training in population health at the University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars Program. She was part of the research team that received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to add data on telomere length to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Her current work focuses on health disparities, medical and psychiatric comorbidity, and aging and the life course.