Rachel Donnelly
Assistant Professor of Sociology
How do social relationships and stress shape health and mortality?
My research focuses on the social determinants of mental and physical health, with an emphasis on the role of stress/adversity and family relationships throughout the life course. In my research, I also examine how disparate experiences based on gender, sexual orientation, and race shape disparities in health, including the processes contributing to health. Taken together, my research tends to take a critical look at emerging trends (e.g., the rise in precarious work) and social changes (e.g., same-sex marriages) to gain new understandings of the implications for health.
In one line of research, for example, I consider how precarious work – work that is insecure and uncertain – undermines marriage and erodes health in midlife adults, with attention to differences by race and gender. In another line of research, I explore how same-sex and different-sex spouses experience and cope with illness, stress, and distress. My research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and published in journals such as Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Society and Mental Health, and Journal of Aging and Health.
Specializations
Health and Mortality
Demography
Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation
Representative publications
Donnelly, Rachel, Debra Umberson, and Tetyana Pudrovska. Forthcoming. “Family Member Death, Race, and Subjective Life Expectancy.” Journal of Aging and Health. Online First. doi: 10.1177/0898264318809798.
Behler, Rachel, Rachel Donnelly, and Debra Umberson. 2019. “Psychological Distress Contagion in Same-Sex and Different-Sex Marriages.” Journal of Health & Social Behavior 60(1):18-35.
Donnelly, Rachel, Brandon A. Robinson, and Debra Umberson. 2019. “Can Spouses Buffer the Impact of Discrimination on Depressive Symptoms? An Examination of Same-sex and Different-sex Marriages.” Society and Mental Health 9(2):192-210.
Umberson, Debra, Julie Skalamera Olson, Robert Crosnoe, Hui Liu, Tetyana Pudrovska, and Rachel Donnelly. 2017. “Death of Family Members as an Overlooked Source of Racial Disadvantage in the United States.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(5):915-920.
Thomeer, Mieke Beth, Rachel Donnelly, Corinne Reczek, and Debra Umberson. 2017. “Planning for Future Care and the End of Life: A Qualitative Analysis of Gay, Lesbian, and Heterosexual Couples.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 58(4): 473-487.