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University of Colorado Denver College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

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Faculty & Staff Directory

Richard Miech, Ph.D.

Professor

Curriculum Vitae
Email: Richard Miech
Office Location: Administration Building 280E
Phone: (303) 556-8422
Fax: (303) 556-8501
Office hours: By appointment
Areas of Expertise:
Health disparities by socioeconomic status

 

Education & Degrees

M.P.H., Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 2005

Postdoctoral Fellow with John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Psychopathology and Development, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1998-1999

NIA Postdoctoral Fellow with Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1997-1998

NIMH Postdoctoral fellow with the Mental Health Research Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1995-1997

Ph.D., Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1995

M.A., Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1992

B.A., Department of Sociology, Stanford University, 1990

 

Bio

Dr. Richard Miech focuses on health disparities by socioeconomic status, with a particular emphasis disparities that have emerged or widened in recent years. Examples of outcomes for which Dr. Miech has identified emerging disparities include obesity among older adolescents (see article in JAMA), cocaine use among adults (see article in Drug and Alcohol Dependence), and diabetes-related mortality among adults (see article in American Journal of Preventive Medicine). In his work Dr. Miech shows that outcomes with emerging disparities are actually quite common and tend to offset the progress that is made in reducing disparities in other outcomes. He posits that any serious effort for a long-term reduction in health disparities will require efforts a disparity prevention, a topic that currently receives little attention.

Select Publications

2009 Miech, Richard A., Jinyoung Kim, Carrie McConnell, and Richard Hamman. “A Growing Disparity in Diabetes-Related Mortality: U.S. Trends 1989-2005.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 36(2):126-132.

2008 Miech, Richard A. “The Formation of a Socioeconomic Health Disparity: The Case of Cocaine Use During the 1980s and 1990s.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 49(3): 352-366.

2008 Link, Bruce G., Jo C. Phelan, Richard Miech, and Emily Leckman. 2008. “The Resources that Matter: Fundamental Social Causes of Health Disparities and the Challenge of Intelligence.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 49(1):72-91.

2007 Miech, Richard A., Chris Power, and William W. Eaton. 2007. “Disparities in Psychological Distress Across Education and Sex: A Longitudinal Analysis of Their Persistence Within A Cohort Over 19 Years.” Annals of Epidemiology 17(4):289-295.

2006 Miech, Richard, Shiriki Kumanyika , Nicolas Stettler, Bruce Link, Jo Phelan, Virginia Chang. “Trends in the Association of Poverty with Overweight among U.S. Adolescents: 1971-2004” JAMA, 295(20): 2385-2393.

2005 Miech, Richard A., Howard Chilcoat, and Valerie Harder. “The Increase in the Association of Education and Cocaine Use over the 1980s and 1990s: Evidence for a 'Historical Period' Effect.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence 79:311-320.

2003 Miech, Richard A., William Eaton, and Kung-Yee Liang. “Occupational Stratification over the Life Course: A Comparison of Occupational Trajectories Across Race and Gender during the 1980s and 1990s.” Work and Occupations 30(4):440-473.

2001 Miech, Richard A., and Robert M. Hauser. “Socioeconomic Status (SES) and Health at Midlife; A Comparison of Educational Attainment with Occupation-Based Indicators.” Annals of Epidemiology, 11:75-84.

2000 Miech, Richard A., and Michael J. Shanahan. “Socioeconomic Status and Depression over the Life Course.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 41: 162-176.

1999 Miech, Richard A., Avshalom Caspi, Terrie E. Moffitt, Bradley R. Entner Wright, and Phil Silva. "Low Socio-Economic Status and Mental Illnesses: A Longitudinal Study of Selection and Causation During Young Adulthood." American Journal of Sociology, 104:112-47.  ​

Courses Taught

PBHL 3010: Introduction to Epidemiology