Sherman James, Susan B. King Professor of Public Policy Studies and Professor of Sociology; Community and Family Medicine; African and African American Studies  

Sherman James

Office Location: 213 Sanford Institute Building
Office Phone: +1 919 613 7338
Email Address: sjames@duke.edu

Areas of Expertise:
Health Policy
Immigration and Migration
Social Policy

Education:
PhD, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, 1973
A.B., Talladega College, Talladega, AL, 1964

Research Categories: US Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Status and Health Care; Poverty and Health

Current projects: Life course Socioeconomic Position and the Health of African Americans: The Pitt County Study (PI), Reducing diabetes-related health disparities in African Americans (PI), The Southern Center on Environmentally-Driven Disparities in Birth Outcomes (Co-Director)

Research Description: Research: Social determinants of U.S. racial and ethnic health disparities; community-based and public policy interventions to reduce racial and ethnic health disparities

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

  1. Roberts, C. B., Vines, A. I., Kaufman, J. S., James, S. A.. "Cross-Sectional Association between Perceived Discrimination and Hypertension in African-American Men and Women: The Pitt County Study." American Journal of Epidemiology 167.5 (March, 2008): 624-632.
  2. James SA, VanHoewyk J., Belli RF, Strogatz DS, Williams DR. "Life-course Socioeconomic Position and Risk for Hypertension in African American Men: The Pitt County Study." American Journal of Public Health 96.5 (May, 2006): 812-817.
  3. Lucove JC, Kaufman JS, James SA. "Adult and Childhood Socio-economic Status and Metabolic Syndrome among African Americans: the Pitt County Study." American Journal of Public Health 97 (February, 2007): 234-236.
  4. Bennett GG, Wolin KY, James SA. "Lifecourse socioeconomic position and weight change among Blacks: The Pitt County Study." Obesity 15.1 (January, 2007): 172-181.
  5. Haratatos J, Mahalingam R, James SA. "John Henryism, Self-Reported Physical Health Indicators, and the Mediating Role of Perceived Stress among High Socioeconomic Status Asian Immigrants." Social Science & Medicine 64 (February, 2007): 1192-1203.

Curriculum Vitae

Bio/Profile
Sherman A. James is the Susan B. King Professor of Public Policy Studies in the Terry Sanford Institute for Public Policy, Duke University. Prior to joining Duke University, he taught in the epidemiology departments at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (1973-89) and at the University of Michigan (1989-03). At Michigan, he was the John P. Kirscht Collegiate Professor of Public Health, the Founding Director of the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health (CRECH), and a Senior Research Scientist in the Survey Research Center at the Institute for Social Research.

James' research focuses on the social determinants of racial and ethnic health inequalities and community-based and public policy interventions designed to minimize, and ultimately eliminate, these inequalities.

James was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2000. In 2001, he received the Abraham Lilienfeld Award from the Epidemiology section of the American Public Health Association for career excellence in the teaching of epidemiology. He is a fellow of the American Epidemiological Society, the American College of Epidemiology, the American Heart Association, and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. Currently, he serves as president (2007-08) of the Society for Epidemiologic Research (SER), the largest organization of its kind in the world. A social epidemiologist, James received his PhD (Social Psychology) from Washington University, in St. Louis (1973.)