Our Faculty

Diane Sperling Lauderdale, PhD

Diane S. Lauderdale is Professor and Chair of the Department of Public Health Sciences. She is an epidemiologist whose research examines how behavioral and social factors influence health. Recent work has focused on sleep as a behavioral risk factor. This work includes studies of how people’s perceptions of sleep duration and disruption are related to objective sleep measures, studies of how social factors such as social connectedness and loneliness relate to sleep, and studies of how both sleep perceptions and objective measures are associated with health outcomes, including coronary artery disease, obesity, mortality, cortisol levels, and sensory perception. She found marked racial, socioeconomic, and gender disparities in objective sleep duration and disruption among middle aged adults and demonstrated that self-reported sleep duration is systematically biased relative to objective measures. She has also carried out a series of studies about the health of immigrants to the United States. These includes studies of mortality, pre-immigration influence on late-life health, ethnic enclave variation in health behaviors, and discrimination effects on health. In this area, she demonstrated that Arab American women who gave birth in the months following 9/11, a period of unprecedented violence and discrimination for this group, had worse birth outcomes than similar women giving birth a year earlier, a difference not seen for other racial and ethnic groups. This study provided new evidence of stress effects on birth outcomes. She directs the University of Chicago's new MPH program and also the MS for Clinical Professionals (MSCP) in Public Health Sciences, a degree program that prepares clinicians to carry out research in clinical epidemiology and health services research.

University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL
PhD - Epidemiology/Public Health
1996

University of Chicago
Chicago, IL
MALS - Library Science
1981

University of Chicago
Chicago, IL
MADiv - Divinity
1978

Harvard
Cambridge, MA
BA - Religion
1977

Associations of actigraph sleep characteristics with blood pressure among older adults.
Associations of actigraph sleep characteristics with blood pressure among older adults. Sleep Health. 2024 Aug; 10(4):455-461.
PMID: 38906803

Risk Factors for Hospital Readmission in Patients With Interstitial Lung Disease.
Risk Factors for Hospital Readmission in Patients With Interstitial Lung Disease. Respir Care. 2024 Apr 22; 69(5):586-594.
PMID: 38199762

Stress, Isolation, and Sleep Quality among Breast Cancer Survivors throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study in a Multi-Ethnic Cohort.
Stress, Isolation, and Sleep Quality among Breast Cancer Survivors throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study in a Multi-Ethnic Cohort. Res Sq. 2023 Aug 10.
PMID: 37609132

Machine learning with multimodal data for COVID-19.
Machine learning with multimodal data for COVID-19. Heliyon. 2023 Jul; 9(7):e17934.
PMID: 37483733

Did Resilience and Socioeconomic Status Predict Older Adults' Finding a Silver Lining in COVID?
Did Resilience and Socioeconomic Status Predict Older Adults' Finding a Silver Lining in COVID? Innov Aging. 2023; 7(6):igad058.
PMID: 37719663

HepCCATT: a multilevel intervention for hepatitis C among vulnerable populations in Chicago.
HepCCATT: a multilevel intervention for hepatitis C among vulnerable populations in Chicago. J Public Health (Oxf). 2022 12 01; 44(4):891-899.
PMID: 34156077

The social vulnerability metric (SVM) as a new tool for public health.
The social vulnerability metric (SVM) as a new tool for public health. Health Serv Res. 2023 08; 58(4):873-881.
PMID: 36401593

Contributions of Social Factors to Disparities in Prostate Cancer Risk Profiles among Black Men and Non-Hispanic White Men with Prostate Cancer in California.
Contributions of Social Factors to Disparities in Prostate Cancer Risk Profiles among Black Men and Non-Hispanic White Men with Prostate Cancer in California. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2022 02; 31(2):404-412.
PMID: 34853020

Invited Commentary: The Society for Epidemiologic Research Annual Meeting-Room to Improve Gender Equity.
Invited Commentary: The Society for Epidemiologic Research Annual Meeting-Room to Improve Gender Equity. Am J Epidemiol. 2021 09 01; 190(9):1724-1726.
PMID: 34467405

HepCCATT: a multilevel intervention for hepatitis C among vulnerable populations in Chicago.
Tilmon S, Aronsohn A, Boodram B, Canary L, Goel S, Hamlish T, Kemble S, Lauderdale DS, Layden J, Lee K, Millman AJ, Nelson N, Ritger K, Rodriguez I, Shurupova N, Wolf J, Johnson D. HepCCATT: a multilevel intervention for hepatitis C among vulnerable populations in Chicago. J Public Health (Oxf). 2021 Jun 22.
PMID: 34156077

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Louis Block Distinguished Service Professor
University of Chicago
2023

Louis Block Professor of Public Health Sciences and the College
University of Chicago
2020

BSD Faculty Award for Distinguished Educator/Mentor
University of Chicago
2018

Elected membership American Epidemiological Society
2016

President, Society for Epidemiologic Research
2015 - 2016

Fellow, American College of Epidemiology
2006