Dr. Jennifer Robinette

Dr. Jennifer Robinette

Assistant Professor
Courses taught: Health and Well-Being
Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences; Psychology
Office Location: Crean Hall 108
Office Hours: Spring 2020: M 1:30 – 2:30 pm
Phone: (714) 516-6121
Scholarly Works:
Digital Commons
Education:
San Diego State University, Bachelor of Arts
University of California, Irvine, Master of Arts
University of California, Irvine, Ph.D.

Biography

Dr. Jennifer Robinette is a health psychologist who views health and development through a social ecological lens. Each of us is born with certain proclivities that shape the degree to which we experience and maintain good health. Some of these proclivities are based in biology, such as our genetic inheritance, while others are dispositional – and even these two examples are arguably difficult to disentangle. Moreover, aspects of our social relationships, health behaviors, thoughts and feelings embed themselves in our biology. Over the course of our lives, these individual characteristics and experiences spanning multiple domains of our functioning shape our mental, physical, and cognitive health and well-being. Dr. Robinette’s research situates all of the above – peoples’ thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and health – in various contexts. Of primary interest is the examination of health in the contexts of age and residential neighborhoods. Older adults represent a large and rapidly growing segment of the world’s population, and older age is among the strongest risk factors for chronic health conditions. Using multiple large national data sets, Robinette has investigated whether neighborhood hazards increase risk for poor health, whether neighborhood resources decrease risk for poor health, and the degree to which peoples’ individual characteristics partially explain or even modify these neighborhood-health associations.

Dr. Robinette’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Aging. Her research is informed by methods and theories within the fields of psychology, demography, social epidemiology, and social genomics, and involves secondary analysis of data in the Midlife in the United States Survey and the Health and Retirement Study.

 

Recent Creative, Scholarly Work and Publications

Yu, M. Y., Velasquez, A. J., Campos, B., & Robinette, J. W. (2023). Perceived neighborhood disorder and type 2 diabetes disparities in Hispanic, Black, and White Americans. Frontiers in Public Health, 12. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1258348
Guo, F., Harris, K. M., Boardman, J. D., & Robinette, J. W. (2022). Does crime trigger genetic risk for type 2 diabetes in young adults: A G x E interaction study using national data. Social Science and Medicine.
Velasquez, A. J., Douglas, J. A., Guo, F., & Robinette, J. W. (2022). In the Eyes of the Beholder: Race, Place, & Health. Frontiers in Public Health, 10. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.920637
Guo, F., Bostean, G., Berardi, V., Velasquez, A. J., & Robinette, J. W. (2022). Obesogenic Environments and Cardiovascular Disease: A Path Analysis using US Nationally Representative Data. BMC Public Health, 22. doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13100-4
Velasquez, A. A., Douglas, J. A., Guo, F., & Robinette, J. W. (2021). What predicts how safe people feel in their neighborhoods and does it depend on functional status? Social Science and Medicine – Population Health, 16, 100927. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100927
Robinette, J. W. & Boardman, J. D. (2021). Cognition in context: Pathways and compound risk in a sample of US non-Hispanic Whites. Social Science & Medicine, 283, 114183. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114183
Robinette, J. W., Beam, C. R., Gruenewald, T. L. (2021). Can I Buy My Health? A genetically informed study of socioeconomic status and health. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, kaab064. https://doi.org/10.1093/abm/kaab064
Robinette, J. W., Piazza, J. R., & Stawski, R. S. (2021). Neighborhood safety concerns and daily well-being: A national diary study. Well-Being, Space, and Society, 2, 100047. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wss.2021.100047
Robinette, J. W., Bostean, G., Glynn, L. M., Douglas, J. A., Jenkins, B. N., Gruenewald, T. L., & Frederick, D. A. (2021). Perceived Neighborhood Cohesion Buffers COVID-19 Impacts on Mental Health in a United States Sample. Social Science & Medicine, 114269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114269
Robinette, J.W., Boardman, J.D., Crimmins, E. (2019). Differential vulnerability to neighborhood disorder: A gene x environment interaction study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 73, 388-392. doi:10.1136/jech-2018-211373. PMID: 30661031
Robinette, J.W., Boardman, J.D., Crimmins, E. (2018). Neighborhood social cohesion and cardiometabolic risk: A gene x environment study. Biodemography and Social Biology, 64, 173-186. doi: 10.1080/19485565.2019.1568672
Robinette, J.W. & Beam, R. C. (2018). A genetically-informed study of neighborhoods and health: Results from the MIDUS twin sample. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Social Sciences, 1-10. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gby157
Robinette, J.W., Charles, S.T., & Gruenewald, T.L. (2018). Neighborhood cohesion, neighborhood disorder, and cardiometabolic risk. Social Science and Medicine, 198, 70-76. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.12.025.
Robinette, J.W., Charles, S.T., & Gruenewald, T.L. (2017). Neighborhood socioeconomic status and health: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Community Health, 42, 865-871. doi: 10.1007/s10900-017-0327-6. PMC5601026
Robinette, J.W., Charles, S.T., & Gruenewald, T.L. (2016). Vigilant at home: Longitudinal analyses of neighborhood safety perceptions and health. Social Science and Medicine: Population Health, 2, 525-530. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2016.06.004
Robinette, J.W., Charles, S.T., Almeida, D.A., & Gruenewald, T.L. (2016). Neighborhood features and physiological risk: An examination of allostatic load. Health and Place, 41, 110-118. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2016.08.003

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