Dr. Cathy Liu wins IPUMS Research Award

April 3, 2022

MSU Sociology Professor Dr. Hui (Cathy) Liu's research article "Birth Cohort Trends in Health Disparities by Sexual Orientation" has been selected as a winner of the 2021 IPUMS Research Awards, presented by the Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation at the University of Minnesota.

Written with Dr. Rin Reczek (Institute of Population Research, The Ohio State University), the research is described by IPUMS as:

"The authors use IPUMS NHIS data from 2013-2018 to study psychological distress, depression, anxiety, self-rated health, and activity limitation among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) Millennials, Generation Xer’s, and Baby Boomers and pre-Boomers. Health disadvantages of the LGB population, relative to the straight-identified, have increased across cohorts. The authors explain this finding by generational differences in perspective and changes in the composition of who identifies as LGB."

"The competition was tough, and the Award Committee agreed that your article should be awarded a prize in the category of published research using IPUMS Health Surveys data," wrote Steven Ruggles, IPUMS Director.

Dr. Liu is a Professor of Sociology and Director of the Family and Population Health (FPH) Laboratory at MSU. Before joining MSU in 2008, she received her B.A. and M.A. in economics from Nankai University, China, her M.S. in Statistics, and Ph.D. in Sociology and Demography from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research is broadly guided by the aging and life course perspective to study social determinants of population health. Specifically, Dr. Liu has focused on using innovative quantitative methods to develop, test, and promote scientific understanding of marriage and family processes related to population health and well-being over the life course. Her interests in marriage also extend to other “marriage-like” intimate relationships such as LGBTQ relationships and partnered sexuality, and how they are linked to population health and well-being. Dr. Liu has received several prestigious national awards including an NIH Career Award (Mentored Research Scientist Development Award). Her research has been widely reported in prominent national and international news outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, USA Today, US News and World Report, TIME, ABC News, CBS News, Los Angeles Times, Daily Mail, Sydney Morning Herald, The Times of India, China Daily and Iran Daily.