Jerzy Eisenberg-Guyot is a Research Scientist and incoming Assistant Professor in the Division of Epidemiology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine researching the political economy of health. In his dissertation, he analyzed how declining labor union density and labor union militancy in the US over the last several decades has contributed to classed, gendered, and racialized health inequities. His current research integrates advanced epidemiologic methods and relational social theories to investigate the effects of novel social factors, like economic exploitation, on inequities in mental illness, mortality, and other outcomes.
PhD in Epidemiology, 2020
University of Washington School of Public Health
MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, 2013
Tufts University School of Medicine
BA in Community Health and International Relations, 2011
Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences
Complete publication list available on Google Scholar
We estimated social class inequities in US mortality using a relational measure based on power over productive property and workers’ labor, leveraging nationally representative 1986-2018 National Health Interview Survey data with mortality follow-up through December 31, 2019 (n = 911 850). First, using business-ownership, occupational, and employment-status data, we classified respondents as incorporated business owners (IBOs), unincorporated business owners (UBOs), managers, workers, or not in the labor force (NLFs). Next, using inverse-probability-weighted survival curves, we estimated class mortality inequities overall, after subdividing workers by employment status and occupation, and by period, gender, race/ethnicity, and education.
Few epidemiologic studies have used relational social class measures based on control over productive assets and others’ labor to analyze inequities in health-affecting working conditions. Moreover, these studies have often neglected the gendered and racialized dimensions of class relations, dimensions which are essential to understanding population patterns of health inequities. Our study filled these gaps. Using data from the 2002–2018 U.S. General Social Survey, we assigned respondents to the worker, manager, petit bourgeois, or capitalist classes based on their supervisory authority and self-employment status. Next, we estimated class, class-by-gender, and class-by-race inequities in compensation/safety, the labor process, control, and conflict, using Poisson models. We also estimated gender-by-race inequities among workers.
Over the last several decades in the United States, socioeconomic life-expectancy inequities have increased 1–2 years. Declining labor-union density has fueled growing income inequities across classes and exacerbated racial income inequities. Using Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data, we examined the longitudinal union–mortality relationship and estimated whether declining union density has also exacerbated mortality inequities. Our sample included respondents ages 25–66 to the 1979–2015 PSID with mortality follow-up through age 68 and year 2017. To address healthy-worker bias, we used the parametric g-formula. First, we estimated how a scenario setting all (versus none) of respondents’ employed-person–years to union-member employed-person–years would have affected mortality incidence. Next, we examined gender, racial, and educational effect modification. Finally, we estimated how racial and educational mortality inequities would have changed if union-membership prevalence had remained at 1979 (vs. 2015) levels throughout follow-up.
Union members enjoy better wages and benefits and greater power than nonmembers, which can improve health. However, the longitudinal union-health relationship remains uncertain, partially because of healthy-worker bias, which cannot be addressed without high-quality data and methods that account for exposure-confounder feedback and structural nonpositivity. Applying one such method, the parametric g-formula, to US-based Panel Study of Income Dynamics data, we analyzed the longitudinal relationships between union membership, poor/fair self-rated health (SRH), and moderate mental illness (Kessler 6-item score of ≥5). The SRH analyses included 16,719 respondents followed from 1985–2017, while the mental-illness analyses included 5,813 respondents followed from 2001–2017. Using the parametric g-formula, we contrasted cumulative incidence of the outcomes under 2 scenarios, one in which we set all employed-person-years to union-member employed-person-years (union scenario), and one in which we set no employed-person-years to union-member employed-person-years (nonunion scenario). We also examined whether the contrast varied by sex, sex and race, and sex and education.
Applying a relational class theory based on property ownership, authority, and credentials/skill, we analyzed the relationship between class, self-rated health (SRH), and mortality using the 1972–2016 General Social Survey. In a simple measure of class, we assigned respondents to worker, manager, petty bourgeois, or capitalist classes. In a complex measure, we subdivided workers (less-skilled/more-skilled), managers (low/high), and capitalists (small/large). Next, we estimated trends in class structure. Finally, after gender-stratification, we estimated the relationships between class, SRH, and mortality and, in sensitivity analyses, tested for class-by-race interaction.
Led discussion groups, evaluated student assignments and papers, and maintained online course page in 60-student undergraduate class.
Directed discussion sections and evaluated problem sets and quizzes in 100-person graduate-level epidemiology course for non-majors.
Taught 30- to 70-student discussion sections and evaluated problem sets and quizzes in core graduate-level epidemiologic methods courses.
Department-hired tutor for graduate students in core methods courses.
Evaluated research projects, maintained online course page, and led 20-student lab section on survey coding and data management.