Students

Juha entered the Ph.D. Program at the University of California, Riverside in Fall 2016, and earned an M.A. in Sociology in 2018-2019. Her research interest includes healthy disparities, life course, mental health and well-being, disability, and social psychology. The M.A. thesis investigated the association between depressive symptoms in mothers of young children and identity processes. The survey distributed for this survey includes questions on self-esteem and self-efficacy, which has prompted her interest in parents’ well-being. Currently, Juha focuses on the physical and mental health of parents with developmentally disabled children and how the associations vary by race.

Publications:

Juha Lee, Manjing Gao, and Chioun Lee. (2022) Gendered Racial Disparities in Health of Parents with Children with Developmental Disabilities, Frontiers in Psychology. DOI:   10.3389/fpsyg.2022.926655.

Lee, Chioun, Soojin Park, and Juha Lee. (Under Review). Childhood Abuse and Later-Life Health: Examining the Role of Familial Victim–Perpetrator Relationships.

Manjing Gao is a doctoral candidate in the Sociology department. Her current research interests focus on multilevel and life course social determinants of health and health disparities. She is particularly interested in how macro-level factors such as policies, culture, gender regimes interact with individual-level socioeconomic straits over the life course to shape health-related outcomes. Manjing’s dissertation, entitled “Gender disparities in Health: A multilevel and a life-course approach” uses multiple longitudinal studies of aging (SHARE, CHARLS) to unpack the sex/gender disparities in various dimensions of health and health behaviors, including smoking, depression and functional limitations, among the elderly population. Manjing received her B.A. in Sociology from Southeast University, China (2017) and her M.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Riverside (2019).

Published articles:

Manjing Gao, Chioun Lee, and Soojin Park. (2022). Gender, Tobacco Control Policies, and Persistent Smoking of Old Adults: A Longitudinal Analysis of 11 European Countries, Nicotine & Tobacco Research. doi: 10.1093/ntr/ntac023.

Lee, Chioun, Manjing Gao and Carol D. Ryff. (2020). “Gender, Conscientiousness, and Smoking: A Collective vs. Individualistic Society Comparison”. Frontiers in Psychology, 11 (1593).

Juha Lee, Manjing Gao, and Chioun Lee. (2022) Gendered Racial Disparities in Health of Parents with Children with Developmental Disabilities, Frontiers in Psychology. DOI:   10.3389/fpsyg.2022.926655.

Lexi graduated from California State University, Channel Islands in 2015 with a B.A. in Sociology and a minor in Psychology. After entering the Ph.D. Program at the University of California, Riverside in Fall 2016, she earned her M.A. in Sociology in 2018. Her primary area of interests are medical sociology, the sociology of mental health, deviance, and criminology. Influenced by her time spent working in a psychiatric rehabilitation center for those with serious mental illness, Lexi is particularly interested in the consequences of stigma for those who have been labeled “mentally ill.” Her M.A. thesis explored the strategies individuals with serious mental illness use to resist the stigma associated with their diagnoses. Her dissertation centers on an understudied population – early adolescents with mental health problems – and how labeling processes may impede this group from seeking and utilizing treatment services. Lexi is also interested in how health inequities develop across the life course, and, in particular, how health disparities in adulthood stem from early-life adversities.

Published articles:

Harari, Lexi and Chioun Lee. (2021). Intersectionality in Quantitative Health Disparities Research: A Systematic Review of Challenges and Limitations in Empirical Studies. Social Science & Medicine. 277, 113876.

Lee, Chioun, Lexi Harari, and Soojin Park. (2020). Early-Life Adversities and Recalcitrant Smoking in Midlife: An Examination of Gender and Life-Course Pathways. Annals of Behavioral Medicine. 54 (11), 867–879.

Chioun Lee, Debaleena Sain, Lexi Harari, and Esra Kurum. 2022, Social Mobility and Sense of Purpose from Midlife to Old Age: Examining the Role of Major Life Events, Research on Aging. DOI: 10.1177/01640275221121588.