Bridget K. Gorman

Bridget K. Gorman is Dean of Undergraduates and Professor of Sociology at Rice University. As a sociologist and demographer, Bridget is interested in how social conditions and experiences shape group differences in health and well-being among adults. During her career she has organized her research efforts to examine disparities in morbidity, physical functioning, and medical care use across major U.S. demographic groups – particularly racial/ethnic, nativity, gender, and sexuality groups. She is interested not only in how men vs. women, minorities vs. whites, and the foreign vs. native born differ in health outcomes, but also how these social categories intersect to shape health outcomes (e.g., black women vs. white men, heterosexual men vs. gay men). A guiding framework for her work is that health disparities are driven by fundamental social causes (e.g., socioeconomic status, social integration and support) that underlie and shape group differences in health outcomes.