Research directions
The impact of public policies on health and inequality
My research examines how public policies, social transformations and health systems contribute to health inequalities between and within countries. My research has shown that public policies in education, pensions, long-term care systems, health care insurance, poverty, employment and urban planning shape physical and mental health and contribute to health inequalities. My work is interdisciplinary and at the crossroads between epidemiology and public health, economics, demography, sociology and public policy. Based on longitudinal data and cohort studies, I use uses quasi-experimental designs, natural experiments and randomised controlled trials to study the causal impact of public policies.
The implications of population ageing for society and public policy
Population ageing poses major challenges for both society and public policy. My research aims to understand the social, economic and health implications of population ageing, with a particular focus on understanding how policy reforms in response to ageing affects the health and well-being of older people. This includes examining how policy reforms to increase retirement age, change eligibility rules for long-term services, and alter the built environment influence the health and quality of life of older people. I was involved in the development and implementation of the health module of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) for several years, and much of my research is based on a linkage of data on historical policy reforms to data on SHARE and other ageing studies to study the health impact of policies. I am also interested in understanding systematic differences in healthy ageing associated economic circumstances, social connections, and intergenerational family exchanges.
Poverty and Mental health
Poverty is associated with poorer mental health, but the mechanisms underlying this relationship are not yet understood. My research aims to disentangle the causal mechanisms linking poverty and mental health, by studying how policies that aim to reduce poverty, such as conditional cash transfer programmes, vocational training programmes and employment support programmes, impact the mental health of families and children. A focus on anti-poverty interventions is motivated by an interest to isolate the causal effect of poverty on mental health, but also by the need to identify how anti-poverty efforts may have unintended consequences for mental health. Recent projects focus on testing, through a multi-country RCT, the hypothesis that incorporating mental health interventions within poverty reduction efforts may maximise the impact of poverty interventions on social, economic and mental health outcomes.
