Investigating Intra-and Inter-cohort changes in Socioceconomic Gaps in Smoking in Contemporary China

Date: Thursday, March 11

Time: 4 p.m.

Location:YouTube

Smoking rate in China declined moderately through 1990s and early 2000s, but the decline has since stagnated. China remains the largest producer and consumer of cigarettes in the world. This lecture investigates changes in the socioeconomic gaps in smoking during this process. Our analysis suggests that an effective way to reduce smoking, social inequality in smoking and possibly health disparities in China is to target the smoking behavior among low-education groups.

Prof. Lei Jin is associate professor at the Department of Sociology and Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She received her PhD at the University of Chicago and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Robert Wood Johnson Scholars in Health Policy Program at Harvard University. Her research interests include social disparities in health and well-being, health lifestyle, healthcare policy and healthcare professions. Her work has appeared in prestigious international journals such as Demography, Social Science Research, Social Science and Medicine and American Behavioral Scientist.

Prof. Jin’s current projects examines the following topics: 1) social disparities in health lifestyle in transitional China; 2) psychological well-being and power perception in different social and political contexts across the world; and 3) professionalization and professionalism among physicians in China’s public hospitals.