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Margaret Weden

Photo of Margaret Weden
Social Scientist
Santa Monica Office

Education

Ph.D. in population dynamics, Johns Hopkins University; M.H.S. in biostatistics, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health

Overview

Margaret Weden is a demographer and public health scientist with over ten years of experience studying the life course and intergenerational dynamics of population health and social wellbeing. She is currently leading a study of child early care and educational environments and child nutrition, sedentary behavior, and obesity. She is also studying the intergenerational reproduction of childhood poverty in collaborative work that employs Big Data statistical methods to model intergenerational social mobility and social reproduction. Other recent and ongoing work has addressed the trajectories and determinants of disparities in health by race, ethnicity and nativity (e.g., childhood obesity, cognitive health of older adults, and cigarette smoking). Much of her recent work explores the application of statistical methods to improve estimation by combining two or more nationally-representative surveys. She also has past work applying GIS technologies to public health systems and services research. Weden received her Ph.D in population dynamics and M.H.S. in biostatistics from Johns Hopkins University.

Research Focus

Recent Projects

  • BIGDATA Collaborative Research: IA, Population Reproduction of Poverty at Birth from Surveys, Censuses, and Birth Registrations
  • The Impact of Early Care and Education in Child Nutrition, Sedentary Behavior and Obesity by Kindergarten
  • Neighborhood Characteristics and Cognitive Health in U.S. Older Adults
  • Combined-survey Estimation & Markov-chain Simulation of Childhood Obesity
  • Intergenerational Determinants of Youth Smoking Trajectories

Selected Publications

Miles, J.N.†, Weden, M.M. † (†joint-first authors), Lavery, D., Escarce, J.J., Cagney, K.A., Shih, R.A., "Constructing a Time-Invariant Measure of the Socio-economic Status of U.S. Census tracts," Journal of Urban Health, 93(1), 2016

Baker, E.H., Rendall, M.S., Weden, M.M., "Epidemiological Paradox or Immigrant Vulnerability? Obesity Among Young Children of Immigrants," Demography, 52(4), 2015

Link, B.G., Carpiano, R.M, Weden, M.M., "Can Honorific Awards Give Us Clues About the Connection Between Socioeconomic Status and Mortality," American Sociological Review, 78(2), 2013

Weden, M.M., Brownell, P., Rendall, M.S., Lau, C., Fernandes, M., Nazarov, Z., "Parent-reported Height and Weight as Sources of Bias in Survey Estimates of Childhood Obesity," American Journal of Epidemiology, 173(3), 2013

Weden, M.M., Miles, J.M.V, "Intergenerational Relationships Between the Smoking Patterns of a Population-Representative Sample of US Mothers and the Smoking Trajectories of Their Children," American Journal of Public Health, 102(4), 2012

Weden, M.M., Brownell, P., Rendall, M.S., "Prenatal, Perinatal, Early-life, and Sociodemographic Factors Underlying Racial Differences in the Likelihood of High Body Mass Index in Early Childhood," American Journal of Public Health, 102(11), 2012

Weden, M.M., Bird, C.E., Escarce, J.E., Lurie, N., "Neighborhood archetypes for population health research: Is there no place like home," Health & Place, 17, 2011

Weden, M.M., Miles, J.N.V, Friedman, E., Escarce, J., Peterson, C., Langa, K.M. Shih, R.A., "The Hispanic Paradox: Race/ethnicity and Nativity, Immigrant Enclave Residence and Cognitive Impairment among Older US Adults," Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (forthcoming)

Publications