Projects
My research is organized around two interconnected focal areas: (1) early-life environments and biological aging, and (2) social determinants of chronic disease. My current projects aim to expand my research within these domains, ultimately integrating the two to better understand how early-life environments influence chronic disease risk across the life course. In this work, I focus on elucidating the underlying biological pathways linking early-life exposures to later-life health outcomes and on identifying high-risk groups and modifiable intervention targets. Evidence from this work will inform my emerging focus on community-engaged approaches to health equity and implementation science. The projects below represent active and ongoing lines of inquiry within this program.
Early-Life School Contexts, Structural Inequality, and Biological Aging
How do structural features of school environments during childhood and adolescence become biologically embedded to shape aging trajectories and chronic disease risk across the life course? This project uses epigenetic clocks and national longitudinal cohort data to examine the biological consequences of educational inequality — and their downstream implications for cognitive aging and neurodegeneration.
Neighborhood Gun Violence, Environmental Exposures, and Health
This project investigates how adolescent exposure to neighborhood gun violence and broader environmental stressors shapes both biological aging and respiratory health outcomes in early adulthood. Current work examines epigenetic aging and asthma burden as distinct but related health consequences of structural neighborhood conditions.
Structural Racism, Discrimination, and Chronic Disease: The BeWELL Study
Using longitudinal data from the Black Women’s Experiences Living with Lupus (BeWELL) Study, this project examines how multilevel experiences of discrimination and structural racism — from interpersonal encounters to residential segregation — drive racial disparities in chronic disease progression, inflammatory burden, and comorbid conditions.
Community-Engaged Research and Health Equity (emerging)
An emerging line of work applies community-engaged and participatory research approaches to advance health equity in underserved populations. This work integrates intersectional frameworks, implementation science, and structural determinants to develop research that is both scientifically rigorous and meaningfully connected to communities most affected by health disparities.
Connor Martz, PhD 