The Study of Longevity and Stress in African Americans (SOLSAA) is a 5-year project sponsored by the National Institute on Aging.
On average, African Americans have shorter life expectancies than the overall population. However, there is a subset of African Americans who live well beyond 80 years of age who are considered “exceptional survivors”. Few, if any studies have taken a comprehensive approach to investigate biopsychosocial factors that shape health outcomes among older African Americans.
The goal of SOLSAA is to identify patterns of stress, discrimination, sources of resilience, health status, and genes that contribute to longevity observed within African American families. We are examining these factors using vertical and horizontal approaches by studying similarities between parent-child and sibling pairs.
Tyson H. Brown is the PI of the $2.8M SOLSAA subcontract at Duke. The study team at Duke also includes biologist Mike Hauser, a study coordinator (Camela Barker), and four full-time staff members who are conducting interviews and analyzing data. Keith E. Whitfield (Wayne State University) and Roland J. Thorpe (Johns Hopkins University) are the principal investigators of the parent grant (R01 AG05436).
Sociologist Tyson Brown studies social mechanisms that lead to different health outcomes.
Assistant professor of sociology Tyson H. Brown focuses on how social factors affect population health. Brown is also the director of the Center on Health & Society. His new work investigates why older adults get sick at different rates.
Faculty Book: by Robert W. Turner II, July 2018 | ISBN: 9780199892907 | Edition 1
Drawing on personal experience as a former pro football player and interactions with over 140 current and former NFL athletes, Dr. Robert W. Turner II reveals what it means to be a high school and college athlete pursuing the dream of playing in the NFL, and why so many players struggle with life after football.
“Health disparities reflect the culmination of advantages for some and disadvantages for others,” says Tyson Brown, a sociologist and director of the Center for Biobehavioral Health Disparities Research at Duke University. “Population health is a mirror that reflects societal arrangements, and there is a great deal of empirical evidence that societal arrangements affect biology and lead to the health disparities we observe.”
Publication
Fall Faculty Books: by Keith E. Whitfield, July 2013 | ISBN: 9780826109637 | Edition 1
Whitfield, vice provost of academic affairs and former co-director of Duke’s Center on Health & Society, addresses the social, behavioral and biological factors influencing key public health issues facing a rising number of older minority Americans.
Distinguished Lecture Series
David Williams (Harvard)
Part of the CHS distinguished lecture series
On routes toward ending structural racism and achieving health equity:
From POLITICO:Tyson Brown is an assistant professor of sociology and director of the Center on Biobehavioral Health Disparities Research at Duke University.
Article
In this the POLITICO article, featuring Tyson Brown, 14 experts were asked about “one smart upstream investment” that could be made to improve America’s long-term health.