A specialist in demography and epidemiology, her current research examines the role of social and economic factors on adult health and the physiological pathways through which these factors operate. She is currently participating in a biodemographic data collection effort in Taiwan to examine these associations. She previously conducted a large-scale field survey in rural Guatemala to investigate the determinants of illness and health care choices among children and pregnant women. The author or coauthor of more than 100 articles in professional journals, she has consulted for RAND, the International Statistical Institute, Westinghouse Health Systems, the United Nations, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, and the World Fertility Survey, and has served on various committees of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institutes of Health. D.Sc. Harvard University.