Dr. Chen’s areas of expertise focus on obesity, health disparities, economics of genomics, health economics, and applied econometrics.
2016: Excellence in Diversity Civilian Award: Federal Asian Pacific American Council
2013: Winner, CDC Behavioral and Social Science Award for paper “Chen Z, Crawford Gotway CA. The Role of Geographic Scale in Testing the Income Inequality Hypothesis as an Explanation of Health Disparities. Social Science & Medicine 2012;75:1022-1031”
2013: Nominated for CDC Shepard Award: for paper “Chen Z, Roy K., Gotway Crawford CA. Obesity Prevention: The Impact of Local Health Departments. Health Services Research. 2013, 48(2):603-627.”
2010/2011: Finalist, CDC Kaafee Billah Memorial Award for Health Economics
2010/2011: Recognized as “Exceptional Reviewer” by Medical Care
2006: Nominated for the ACCI Applied Consumer Economics Award. [Cho S., Chen Z, Yen ST, Eastwood DB. “The effects of urban sprawl on body mass index: where people live does matter?” presented at the 52nd Annual Conference of the American Council on Consumer Interests. March 15-18, 2006, Baltimore, MD]
Dr. Chen teaches courses on health policy, social determinants of health, health management, research methods, and claims data analysis.
Dr. Chen has published more than 40 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals on topics including behavioral and social science research, economic of obesity, health economics, health disparity, social epidemiology, and small area analysis, in leading field journals including Social Science & Medicine, American Journal of Public Health, Health Services Research, and many others. Dr. Chen received the 2013 CDC Excellence in Behavioral and Social Science Research Award.
His research areas include economics of obesity, health disparities, economics of genomics, social determinants of health, evaluation of food and nutrition programs, health econometrics, and economic evaluation.
1) Meltzer DO, Chen Z. The impact of minimum wage rates on body weight in the United States, in Economic Aspects of Obesity. Grossman M, Mocan N. eds, pp 17-34. The University of Chicago Press, May 1, 2011. (National Bureau of Economic Research book series) (refereed)
1) Li C, Khan MM, Chen Z.† (2023). Public trust of physicians in China improved since the COVID-19 pandemic Began. Soc Sci & Med, doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115704
2) Son H, Zhang D, Shen Y, Jaysing A, Zhang J, Chen Z, Mu L, Liu J, Rajbhandari-Thapa J, Li Y, Pagán JA. (2023). Social Determinants of Cardiovascular Health: A Longitudinal Analysis of Cardiovascular Disease Mortality in US Counties From 2009 to 2018. J Am Heart Assoc. 2023 Jan 17;12(2):e026940. doi: 10.1161/JAHA.122.026940.
3) Wang R, Liu J, Qin Y, Chen Z, Li J, Guo P, Shan L, Li Y, Hao Y, Jiao M, Qi X, Meng N, Jiang S, Kang Z, Wu Q. (2023). Global attributed burden of death for air pollution: Demographic decomposition and birth cohort effect. Sci Total Environ doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.160444.
4) Chen Z, Jiang W, Xu J, Jiang L, Wang G. (2022). Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Genomics in China: A Scoping Review and Implications for Precision Public Health. China CDC Weekly, 4(32): 706-710. doi: 10.46234/ccdcw2022.147
5) Zhao Y, Di X, Li S, Zeng X, Wang X, Nan Y, Xiao L, Koplan JP, Chen Z†, Liu S†. (2022). Prevalence, Frequency, Intensity, ad Location of Cigarette Use among Adolescents in China from 2013-14 to 2019: findings from two repeated cross-sectional studies.The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific 27:100549. doi: 10.1016/j.lanwpc.2022.100549.
6) Yan AF, Chen Z, Wang Y, Campbell J, Xue Q, Williams M, Weinhardt L, Egede L. (2022) Effectiveness of social needs screening and interventions in clinical settings on utilization, cost, and clinical outcomes–a systematic review. Health Equity 6(1):454-475.
7) Li H, Chen B, Chen Z, Shi L, Su D. (2022) Americans’ Trust in COVID-19 Information from Governmental Sources in the Trump Era: Individuals’ Adoption of Preventive Measures, and Health Implications. Health Communication, epub online. doi:10.1080/10410236.2022.2074776
8) Jing Z, Li J, Gao T, Wang Y, Chen Z, Zhou C, (2022) Identifying vulnerability to poverty and its determinants among older adults in empty-nest households: An empirical analysis from rural Shandong Province, China, Health Policy and Planning, 3;37(7):849-857
9) Shi L, Zhang D, Martin E, Chen Z, Li H, Han X, Wen M, Chen L, Li Y, Li J, Ramos AK, King KM, Michaud T, Su D. (2022) Racial Discrimination, Mental Health and Behavioral Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic: a National Survey in the United States. Journal of General Internal Medicine. Apr 11:1–9. doi: 10.1007/s11606-022-07540-2.
10) Chen Z, Roy K, Khushalani JS, Puddy RW. (2022) Trend in Rural-Urban Disparities in Access to Outpatient Mental Health Services among US Adults Aged 18–64 with Employer-Sponsored Insurance: 2005–2018. J Rural Health. 00:1-7. https://doi.org/10.1111/jrh.12644
11) Li L, Wang K, Chen Z, Koplan JP. (2021) US–China health exchange and collaboration following COVID-19. Lancet, Apr 8;S0140-6736(21)00734-0. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00734-0.
12) Yan AF, Chen Z, Wang MQ, Mendez C, Egede LE. (2021) Accessibility to Medicare Diabetes Prevention Programs and Variation by State, Race, and Ethnicity. JAMA Network Open. 4(10):e2128797. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.28797
13) Liu, N., Chen Z. & Bao, G. (2021) Unpacking the red packets: institution and informal payments in healthcare in China. Eur J Health Econ 22, 1183-1194.
14) Chen Z, Zhang Y, Luo H, Zhang D, Rajbhandari-Thapa J, Wang Y, Wang R, Bagwell-Adams G. (2021) Narrowing but persisting gender pay gap among employees of the US Department of Health and Human Services during 2010-2018. Hum Resour Health. May 13;19(1):65.
