Jessica Polos

I am an Assistant Professor in the Master of Public Health Program at DePaul University in Chicago. I specialize in quantitative methods and use quasi-experimental designs and demographic methods in my work. My research integrates sociological, biosocial, and life course approaches.

Presently, my research agenda focuses on social determinants of health, particularly on how structural discrimination and social contextual mechanisms generate health disparities over the life course. My research interests also include maternal-child health and wellbeing, caregiving and intensive parenting, and the intergenerational transmission of health. My research has been published in Social Science and Medicine - Population Health, Social Science & Medicine, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Population Studies, and Population Research and Policy Review, among others.

Prior to joining DePaul, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. In July 2020, I received my PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I was a predoctoral trainee at the Center for Demography and Ecology and the Center for the Demography of Health and Aging. I also hold a Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago's Harris School, as well as a dual-B.A. in Anthropology and International Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.