Epidemiology, Socioeconomic and Ethnic Disparities in Disease Outcomes

Linda Gerber, Ph.D., Epidemiologist, is Professor of Population Health Sciences in the Division of Biostatistics in the Department of Population Health Sciences and Professor of Epidemiology in Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Gerber is a national expert in hypertension research who has investigated the relationship between psychological characteristics and responses to antihypertensive drug therapy, as well as the role of ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and behavioral and genetic factors on diurnal blood pressure patterns. Dr. Gerber has collaborated as an epidemiologist and medical anthropologist in a variety of clinical epidemiological research projects. She was the Principal Investigator on the Neighborhood Study, a National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI)-funded study which investigated the relationship of ethnicity, socioeconomic status and sleep patterns on diurnal blood pressure rhythms. She has also collaborated with the Visiting Nurse Service of New York City on a number of federally-sponsored studies investigating the role of patient self-management on blood pressure control.  Other areas of research include traumatic brain injury, estimating 24-hour sodium excretion from spot urine samples, vitamin D deficiency, and women's midlife health.