Yan Zheng joins BMI

Yan Zheng will join as a postdoctoral fellow of the BMI Demography Lab and Healthy Longevity Research Center in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University. Prior to joining Tel Aviv University, she obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Hong Kong. She mainly works on population health research, and her research areas cover life expectancy, lifespan inequality, and healthy life expectancy. She also conducted studies related to suicide and mental disorders.

Currently, her project mainly focuses on the social determinants of life expectancy and lifespan inequality in Israel. Although Israel is at the global vanguard of life expectancy among men and women alike, we currently know little about its level of lifespan inequality and how it has changed over time, both for the population as a whole as well as for various social groups. A comprehensive analysis of life expectancy, lifespan inequality, and their underlying social determinants will improve our understanding of the population health in Israel—both with respect to maintaining improvements in longevity and ensuring that they are shared by all.