University of California, Irvine

Position Title/Short Description

Full Text of JOE Listing:

Dr. Tim Bruckner seeks a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Joe C. Wen School of Population and Public Health at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), to work on two projects. The main project involves understanding structural, economic, and policy-level causes of racial disparities in stillbirth and live birth outcomes in the US. The secondary project will assist with quantifying the extent to which postponement of childbearing in Denmark affects health, educational, labor market, and other societal costs—both for parents and their children. The fellowship is a one-year appointment with the possibility of one-to-two-year renewal. This appointment is contingent upon receipt of the Ph.D. prior to the start date.

The funded NIH project in the US aims to understand racial differences over time in stillbirth, preterm birth, and neonatal mortality in the US. We will use the universe of live births, infant deaths, and fetal deaths in the US (~70 million records) to rigorously examine race-specific trends in preterm birth and infant mortality rates. In addition, we will use a structural racism theoretical framework to examine the extent to which dynamic race-based spatial indicators of inequality affect patterns in fetal loss, selection in utero, and infant mortality among preterm births.

Separately, the secondary project is motivated by the fact that the age of first-time mothers in Denmark has increased by more than 20%, from 24.8 years in 1981 to 29.8 years in 2021. We aim to understand the extent to which postponement of childbearing affects birth outcomes, children’s health and educational outcomes, and parental labor force participation. We will characterize changes over time (i.e., 1980 to 2018) in parents’ delay of childbearing in Denmark and delineate which demographic groups in particular account for these trends. We will exploit the longitudinal nature of register data to use sibling-control and maternal fixed-effects methods to estimate biologically-based sequelae of older age at childbearing (>30 years) as well as social “selection” into postponed childbearing.

Work Expectation: Whereas the candidate is expected to have an in-person presence at UCI at least 2 days a week, remote work arrangements are negotiable.

Qualifications:
- PhD in epidemiology, economics, sociology, demography, or a related field
- Background in epidemiology, demography, health policy or biostatistics
- Background in maternal and infant health
- Fluency in at least two of the following: STATA, R, SAS

Duties:
- Conduct independent research using the US birth file and the California microdata birth cohort file, under the guidance of Professor Tim Bruckner, Department of Health, Society & Behavior. Submit articles for publication.
- Conduct research using the full force of the Danish Registers (1980 to 2018), under the guidance of Professor Tim Bruckner.
- Participate in project meetings and other events with the team from Johns Hopkins, Berkeley, Columbia, and Duke University, as well as colloquia in the School of Population and Public Health. You will also attend colloquia at the Center for Population, Inequality, and Policy, as relevant.
- Have the option to attend graduate coursework in the Program in Public Health and elsewhere.

The Postdoctoral Fellow will also have other opportunities for collaborative and independent research projects, as part of the Bruckner Lab (https://sites.uci.edu/brucknerlab/). They will be expected to engage with the Project Teams at UCI and internationally, the Wen School of Population and Public Health, and the Center for Population, Inequality, and Policy (UCI). The Fellow is expected to take advantage of the many resources at UCI (e.g., colloquia, workshops, and other events) to develop a research career.