About
Rachel N. Head is an assistant professor of sociology, co-director at TITAN, and an affiliate of the Fishlinger Center for Public Policy Research. Head’s research addresses mental and physical health inequities for marginalized, under-represented, and disadvantaged populations based on racial-ethnic stratification and class inequities. Her recent work focuses on the application of the stress process model to “deaths of despair”—deaths due to substance abuse, alcohol abuse, and intentional self-harm—among white working-class and Native American communities. This work addresses trauma, broadly conceptualized, as the result of rapid economic change and institutionalized racism. Head has published in Society and Mental Health, Sociological Spectrum, Health Promotion Practice, Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, and the Journal of Behavioral and Social Sciences.
Education
- Ph.D., North Carolina State University
Research interests and areas of expertise
- Stress process
- Deaths of despair
- Intersectionality