Malia Jones

How do the places we spend time affect our health? How are the dynamic, interpersonal interactions of everyday life situated in places? How do patterns in the use of social and physical space lead to differences in the health of populations? My research agenda centers on spatially explicit approaches to the relationship between people and their social environments, and how spatial exposures lead to health disparities. I study how geographic distribution of people creates and replicates health disparities across time. Some of my ongoing work looks at how geographic and social clusters of institutional mistrust can undermine herd immunity for infectious diseases. My current work looks at rural health issues during the pandemic, including COVID-19 mortality and differences in vaccine behaviors across the urban-rural spectrum.  

I’m also a co-founder and the Director of Science for Those Nerdy Girls, a voluntary social media-based science communication collaborative. As an organization, our mission is to disseminate practical and factual health information to our readers. As the Director of Science, I’m working on ways to measure the impact of social media health promotion messaging on users.

Each Spring semester, I teach Introduction to Public Health (PH370/CES370) in the Community & Environmental Health and the Global Health majors. 

CDE Research Area Affiliations:

Demography of Inequality; Health and the Life Course; Spatial and Environmental Demography

Selected Publications:

Passmore, Susan Racine, Emma Henning, Lynne Margalit Cotter, Mahima Bhattar, Sijia Yang, Emily Latham, Daniel Schultz, and Malia Jones. “Fostering Trust in Public Health Messaging: Tailoring Communication for Rural Parents.“ American Journal of Health Promotion (2024): 08901171241278886.

Jones, Malia, and Katelyn K. Jetelina. “More to Offer Than Direct Clinical Benefit: FDA’s Vaccine Licensure Process Ignores Population Health and Social Determinants of Disease.“ American Journal of Epidemiology 193, no. 1 (2024): 1-5.