Overview
Sociologist and demographer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (Department of Sociology; Center for Demography and Ecology). Specializes in population health, immigrant health disparities, and the demography of disability and aging.
Key Contributions / Features
- Lead author of Engelman et al. (2017): using ACS 2005–2007 and SSA administrative data (DRF + CWHS + Numident), corrected the Huang et al. (2011) finding that foreign-born have higher work disability than native-born — a 2000 census measurement artifact — and established that the Healthy Immigrant Effect extends to work disability and SSDI receipt.
- Demonstrated that the 2000 census work disability question was systematically misunderstood by limited-English respondents (interpreted as employment status, not disability), inflating foreign-born work disability rates by up to 6–8× for some origin groups.
- Documented variation in DI incidence, application rates, technical denial ratios, and medical allowance rates across 17 world regions of birth using DRF + CWHS linkage, providing the most detailed nativity-by-origin picture of SSDI for 2001–2010.
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