Discipline(s):
Demography, Public Health
Area(s) of Expertise:
Child Health and Nutrition, Social Disparities in Chronic Health Risk, Food Security, Obesity, Vaccine Refusal, Natural Disasters and Health
E-Mail:
abutt@wharton.upenn.edu
Background:
Alison Buttenheim is a public health researcher and social demographer who studies child health and wellbeing. Her dissertation assessed children’s nutritional status in vulnerable communities in Asia, examining how households protect children from health and economic shocks. She has also completed several studies of marriage and reproductive health in Indonesia. Most recently, as a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University’s Office of Population Research, she has conducted research on social disparities in chronic disease risk in the Mexican and Mexican-American populations. As a Health & Society Scholar, Alison plans to investigate the role of parental attitudes, beliefs, and decision-making in determining child health, focusing on two outcomes in particular: vaccine refusal and childhood obesity. Using the techniques and frameworks of experimental psychology, behavioral economics, and social networks analysis, she will examine how diverse forces ranging from the media and the internet to peer norms and altruism shape the decision architecture that parents inhabit when making choices about their children’s health. Alison received her Ph.D. in Public Health at UCLA in 2007. She also holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA in history from Yale University.
Journal Articles:
Click here for a list of Alison Buttenheim's available publications in PubMed.
