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M. Giovanna Merli, Professor  

Office Location: 236 Rubenstein Hall, Durham, NC 27708
Office Phone: +1 919 613 9305
Duke Box: 90312
Email Address: giovanna.merli@duke.edu

Areas of Expertise

  • Health Policy
    • Global Health
    • HIV/AIDS
  • Social Policy, Demography

Education:
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1996
M.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1993
M.A. (International Relations), The Johns Hopkins University, 1991
B.A. (Oriental Languages and Literature), University of Venice, 1987

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

  1. Merli, MG; Moody, J; Verdery, A; Yacoub, M. "Demography's Changing Intellectual Landscape: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Leading Anglophone Journals, 1950-2020.." Demography 60.3 (June, 2023): 865-890. [doi]  [abs]
  2. Stolte, A; Nagy, GA; Zhan, C; Mouw, T; Merli, MG. "The impact of two types of COVID-19-related discrimination and contemporaneous stressors on Chinese immigrants in the US South.." SSM. Mental health 2 (December, 2022): 100159. [doi]  [abs]
  3. Merli, MG; Mouw, T; Le Barbenchon, C; Stolte, A. "Using Social Networks to Sample Migrants and Study the Complexity of Contemporary Immigration: An Evaluation Study.." Demography 59.3 (June, 2022): 995-1022. [doi]  [abs]
  4. Stolte, A; Merli, MG; Hurst, JH; Liu, Y; Wood, CT; Goldstein, BA. "Using Electronic Health Records to understand the population of local children captured in a large health system in Durham County, NC, USA, and implications for population health research.." Soc Sci Med 296 (March, 2022): 114759. [doi]  [abs]
  5. Attané, I; Eklund, L; Merli, MG; Bozon, M; Angeloff, T; Yang, B; Li, S; Pairault, T; Wang, S; Yang, X; Zhang, Q. "Understanding Bachelorhood in Poverty-stricken and High Sex Ratio Settings: An Exploratory Study in Rural Shaanxi, China.." The China quarterly 240 (December, 2019): 990-1017. [doi]  [abs]

Highlight:
My research straddles three disciplinary realms: demography, contemporary Chinese society and global health. I focus on a range of population and health issues in developing countries that intersect frontline public policy, such as the role of China's population control program in lowering fertility preferences and fertility rates in China, the social and behavioral determinants of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases and the methodological evaluation and implementation of network-based approaches to sample hard-to-reach and hidden populations such as those at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases as well as undocumented migrants. 

Current Ph.D. Students   (Former Students)

  • Wei He  

M. Giovanna Merli