My research focuses on four broad areas: inequality, international comparative sociology, population, and medical sociology. Within these areas, my research spans four main themes: (1) explaining why Americans live shorter and unhealthier lives than people in other high-income countries; (2) examining how inequalities in health and mortality emerge and evolve over time; (3) identifying the causes and consequences of the contemporary drug overdose epidemic; and (4) the determinants of health and mortality across the age range in developing countries.
Ho, Jessica Y. 2022. “Causes of America’s Lagging Life Expectancy: An International Comparative Perspective.” Forthcoming, The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences.
Franco, Yujin, Joseph Saenz, Yuri Jang, and Jessica Y. Ho. 2022. “The Relationship Between Multimorbidity and Types of Chronic Diseases and Self-Rated Memory.” Forthcoming, Research on Aging.
Ho, Jessica Y. and Yujin Franco. 2022. “The Rising Burden of Alzheimer’s Disease Mortality in Rural America.” Social Science & Medicine – Population Health 17: 101052. Accessible here (open access).
Hendi, Arun S., and Jessica Y. Ho. 2021. “Immigration and Improvements in American Life Expectancy.” Social Science & Medicine – Population Health 15: 100914. Accessible here (open access).
Ho, Jessica Y. 2021. “What Demographers Need—and What the World Needs from Demographers—in Response to Covid-19.” In Covid-19 and the Global Demographic Research Agenda, edited by Landis MacKellar and Rachel Friedman, 33–36. New York: Population Council. Accessible here.
Benjamin Cohen, Dana P. Goldman, Jessica Y. Ho, Daniel L. McFadden, Martha S. Ryan, and Bryan Tysinger. 2020. “Improved Survival for Individuals with Common Chronic Conditions in the Medicare Population.” Health Economics 30(S1): 80–91. Accessible here.
Ho, Jessica Y. 2020. “Cycles of Gender Convergence and Divergence in Drug Overdose Mortality.” Population and Development Review. 46(3): 443–470. Accessible here (open access).
Ho, Jessica Y. 2020. “Measures and Models for Longevity and Aging: The Burden of Mortality from COVID-19.” Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Items Insights from the Social Sciences “COVID-19 and the Social Sciences” series. Accessible here.
Ho, Jessica Y. 2020. “Causes of Gains and Losses in Life Expectancy in OECD Countries.” In OECD/The King’s Fund, Is Cardiovascular Disease Slowing Improvements in Life Expectancy? Pp. 39-52. Paris: OECD Publishing. Accessible here (open access).
Sudharsanan, Nikkil and Jessica Y. Ho. 2020. “Rural-Urban Differences in Adult Life Expectancy in Indonesia: A Parametric G-Formula Based Decomposition Approach.” Epidemiology 31(3): 393–401. Accessible here (open access).
Elo, Irma T., Arun S. Hendi, Jessica Y. Ho, Yana Vierboom, and Samuel H. Preston. 2019. “Trends in Non-Hispanic White Mortality in the United States by Metropolitan-Nonmetropolitan Status and Region, 1990- 2016.” Population and Development Review 45(3): 549–583. Accessible here (open access).
Featured in the Population Reference Bureau article "High Obesity Rates Plus Severe Coronavirus Cases Could Strain Rural U.S. Hospitals" by Paola Scommegna.
Ho, Jessica Y. 2019. “The Contemporary American Drug Overdose Epidemic in International Perspective.” Population and Development Review 45(1): 7–40. Accessible here (open access).
Ho, Jessica Y. and Arun S. Hendi. 2018. “Widespread Life Expectancy Declines Across High-Income Countries: A Retrospective Observational Study.” The BMJ. 362: k2562. Accessible here (open access).
Accompanying editorial "Reversals in life expectancy in high income countries?" by Domantas Jasilionis.
Ho, Jessica Y., Elizabeth Frankenberg, Cecep Sumantri, and Duncan Thomas. 2017. “Adult Mortality Five Years after a Natural Disaster: Evidence from the Indian Ocean Tsunami.” Population and Development Review 43(3): 467–490. Accessible here.
Ho, Jessica Y. 2017. “The Contribution of Drug Overdose to Educational Gradients in Life Expectancy in the United States, 1992-2011.” Demography 54(3): 1175-1202. Accessible here.
Featured in the Population Reference Bureau article "Opioid Overdose Epidemic Hits Hardest for the Least Educated" by Paola Scommegna.
Peltonen, Riina E., Jessica Y. Ho, Irma T. Elo, and Pekka Martikainen. 2017. “Contribution of Smoking-Attributable Mortality to Life Expectancy Differences by Marital Status among Finnish Men and Women, 1971–2010.” Demographic Research 36(8): 255–280. Accessible here.
Ho, Jessica Y. 2016. “Mortality: Transitions and Measures.” In Ritzer, George (Ed.), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Blackwell Publishing, 2007. Blackwell Reference Online. 03 May 2016.
Frankenberg, Elizabeth, Jessica Y. Ho, and Duncan Thomas. 2015. “Biological Health Risks and Economic Development.” In John Komlos and Inas Rashad Kelly (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Economics and Human Biology. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Accessible here.
Ho, Jessica Y. and Andrew Fenelon. 2015. “The Contribution of Smoking to Educational Differences in U.S. Life Expectancy.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 56(3): 307-322. Accessible here.
Referenced in The New York Times article “Disparity in Life Spans of the Rich and the Poor Is Growing” by Sabrina Tavernise.
Ho, Jessica Y. 2015. “Early Life Environmental Exposures and Height, Hypertension, and Cardiovascular Risk Factors Among Older Adults in India.” Biodemography and Social Biology 61(2): 121-146. Accessible here.
Ho, Jessica Y. and Irma T. Elo. 2013. “The Contribution of Smoking to Black-White Differences in Mortality.” Demography 50(2): 545–568. Accessible here.
Ho, Jessica Y. 2013. “Mortality Under Age 50 Accounts For Much of the Fact That US Life Expectancy Lags That of Other High-Income Countries.” Health Affairs 32(3): 459–467. Accessible here.
Featured on PBS NewsHour, in The Philadelphia Inquirer article “Check Up: Life expectancy shortened by early years” by Don Sapatkin, and in the Population Reference Bureau article "Up to Half of U.S. Premature Deaths Are Preventable; Behavioral Factors Key" by Mark Mather and Paola Scommegna.
Martikainen, Pekka, Jessica Y. Ho, Samuel H. Preston, and Irma T. Elo. 2013. “The Changing Contribution of Smoking to Educational Differences in Life Expectancy: Indirect Estimates for Finnish Men and Women from 1971 to 2010.” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 67: 219–224. Accessible here.
Preston, Samuel H. and Jessica Ho. 2011. “Low Life Expectancy in the United States: Is the Health Care System at Fault?” Pp. 259-298 in International Differences in Mortality at Older Ages: Dimensions and Sources. Eileen Crimmins, Samuel H. Preston, and Barney Cohen, editors. National Academy Press. Washington, D.C. Accessible here.
Featured in The New York Times article “To Explain Longevity Gap, Look Past Health System” by John Tierney, the Becker-Posner Blog, Marginal Revolution, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, and Significance.
Ho, Jessica Y. and Samuel H. Preston. 2010. “U.S. Mortality in an International Context: Age Variations.” Population and Development Review 36(4): 749–773. Accessible here.
Frankenberg, Elizabeth, Jessica Y. Ho, and Duncan Thomas. 2015. “Biological Health Risks and Economic Development.” The Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD) Working Paper No. 453, May 2015 (link). Also issued as National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper #21277, June 2015 (link).
Preston, Samuel H. and Jessica Ho. 2009. “Low Life Expectancy in the United States: Is the Health Care System at Fault?” University of Pennsylvania Population Studies Center Working Paper #11, March 2009 (link). Also issued as National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper #15213, July 2009 (link).