Jerald R. Herting

Research Overview: My research interests are generally quite broad but I primarily have worked in sociology of health over the life course looking at mental health and other health related behaviors of adolescents/young adults, often focusing on the role of family, peer group, and neighborhood context on various outcomes. More recently, with colleagues in the UW Nursing School, I have begun looking at healthy aging for older adults. Part of my work has and continues to explore health promotion interventions and how the organization of interventions/service is related to positive outcomes. I am currently (with Dr. Sarah Walker and others) exploring how organizational structure/policy in the juvenile justice system/courts influence outcomes for justice system involved youth and how to influence better service programming in the system.

Besides the research work above, I am engaged in work examining difference in trends in young adult suicide rates among African Americans and Whites, exploring the organization and policy of public health agencies on health disparities especially in child/maternal health, and working with City of Seattle on affordable housing (with K. Crowder).

Teaching: I have a long-standing interest in teaching research methods and statistics.  My teaching at the UW has largely been for Sociology’s introductory set of three graduate statistics courses; other courses include Structural Equation Models (SEM) and hierarchical models.  In the distant past I have also taught demography, family, and social stratification/inequality courses.

Biography: I received my MA in Sociology from SUNY at Stony Brook in 1978 and my PhD from the University of Washington in 1987. I am trained as a demographer and research methodologist. I spent nine years at Stanford University Sociology department before returning to Seattle and a joint appointment in the UW Nursing School’s Psychosocial and Community Health program and the Department of Sociology.  I became a full professor in Sociology in 2014 and chaired the Department from 2011 to 2017.