Shannon Monnat

Professor, Sociology, Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs Link

Faculty Affiliate, Aging Studies Institute
Lerner Chair of Public Health Promotion
Faculty Affiliate, Center for Aging and Policy Studies
Co-Director, Policy, Place and Population Health Lab

CAPS Biography:

My research contributes to the Center’s signature theme on health and well-being and all three cross-cutting themes on policy, place, and specific populations. Specifically, my research examines geographic trends and disparities in health and mortality and their causes, with a particular focus on rural places and populations. In this work, I have focused on both describing and explaining rural-urban and within-rural disparities in individual-level health outcomes and behaviors (e.g., drug use, self-rated health, psychosocial wellbeing, HPV vaccination, allostatic load) and county-level health and mortality outcomes (e.g., COVID-19 vaccination rates, cause-specific mortality), with an emphasis on within-rural heterogeneity (e.g., differences across rural labor markets and regions). As part of this portfolio of work, I developed and am the director of the National Wellbeing Survey – an annual cross-sectional survey of U.S. working-age adults that oversamples rural residents. I also coauthored the book, Rural and Small Town America: Context, Composition, and Complexities (UC Press), published in 2024. My other significant area of research aims to explain geographic variation in drug overdose and suicide mortality rates among working-age adults in the United States, focusing on the roles of state policies and county economic and social contexts.  

My research draws on my interdisciplinary training in sociology and demography and interdisciplinary collaborations across numerous NIH research grants and two NIA-funded research networks. I am the PI on a current NIDA U01 that examines the effects of U.S. states’ COVID-19 mitigation policies on drug overdoses, suicides, and psychological wellbeing among working-age adults (U01DA055972), an MPI on a current NIA R01 to examine the joint contributions of U.S. state policies and county economic conditions on psychosocial wellbeing, health behaviors, and mortality among working-age adults (R01AG082699), and a Co-I on the NIA-funded Understanding America Study (U01AG077280). I am also a Co-PI on the NIA-funded R24 Interdisciplinary Network on Rural Population Health and Aging (INRPHA, R24AG065159), which was just renewed (R24AG089064) for another cycle and a Co-I on the NIA-funded R24 Network on Life Course Health Disparities and Dynamics (2R24AG045061). My research has garnered significant national and international policymaker attention, leading to consultations with the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, NASEM, NIH, the GAO, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, an Aspen Institute Congressional staffer retreat, two Congressional briefings, and numerous policymakers and staffers. I was also a member of the NIA-funded NASEM Consensus Committee on ‘High and Rising Mortality Rates among U.S. Working-Age Adults.’