Research Assistant Professor, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research
Biography
Dr. Meier’s research focuses on biosocial approaches to health inequalities and aging. She is an epidemiologist and uses a life course framework to understand the molecular pathways by which social and environmental exposures occurring throughout life get “under the skin” to affect adult and later life health. Dr. Meier is specifically interested in the biology of immune aging and immunological dysfunction as key factors in the aging process. Dr. Meier investigates health and health inequities using a multi-level approach from biomarkers to structural drivers.
COVID-19 in the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing
Landscapes of Population HealthFunded Research
- Health and Retirement Study: Yrs 35-40
- Michigan Center for Contextual Factors in Alzheimer’s Disease (MCCFAD)
- Michigan Center on the Demography of Aging
- The impact of redlining and place-based systemic racism on health inequalities at mid-life
- The longitudinal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related multi-level mitigation and contextual factors on health and socioeconomic outcomes of individuals and families from a vulnerable population
Publications
- Lima, Sarah M., Palermo, Tia M., Aldstadt, Jared, Tian, Lili, Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Louis, Henry Taylor, Ochs-Balcom, Heather M.. 2025. Historical redlining and clustering of present-day breast cancer factors. Cancer Causes & Control :1-13.
- Xu, Lantian, Li, Chihua, Aiello, Allison E., Kenneth M Langa, Dowd, Jennifer B., Stebbins, Rebecca C., Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Jiang, Ziman, Grace Noppert, Li, Gen. 2025. Compositional analysis of lymphocytes and their relationship with health outcomes: findings from the health and retirement study. Immunity & Ageing 22(1):1-15.
- Ashly C. Westrick, Darlingtina K. Esiaka, Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Ronica N. Rooks, Mark Manning, Wassim Tarraf. 2024. Cognition and Wealth Changes in Mid-to-later Life: A Latent Class Trajectories Approach Using the Health and Retirement Study. Journal of Aging and Health 36(9):510-522.
- Olivia D. Chang, Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Kathryn Maguire-Jack, Pamela Davis-Kean, Colter Mitchell. 2024. Childhood Maltreatment and Longitudinal Epigenetic Aging. JAMA Network Open 7(7):e2421877-e2421877.
- Christine G. Parks, Todd A. Jusko, Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Jesse Wilkerson, Lisa G. Rider, Frederick W. Miller, Dale P. Sandler. 2024. Sunscreen use associated with elevated prevalence of anti-nuclear antibodies in U.S. adults. Journal of Autoimmunity 149:103340.
- Chen, Liang, Mitchell, Bruce C., Richardson, Jason, Helen Carmon Spink Meier. 2024. Home Mortgage Lending and Neighborhood Mental Health: A Spatial Econometric Analysis of 18 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Journal of Urban Health 102(1):35-48.
- Amanda M. Simanek, Meng Xiong, Jennifer M.P. Woo, Cheng Zheng, Yuan S. Zhang, Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Allison E. Aiello. 2023. Association Between Prenatal Socioeconomic Disadvantage, Adverse Birth Outcomes, and Inflammatory Response at Birth. Psychoneuroendocrinology 153:106090.
- Vivek, Sithara, Crimmins, Eileen M., Prizment, Anna E., Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Ramasubramanian, Ramya, Barcelo, Helene, Jessica Danielle Faul, Thyagarajan, Bharat. 2023. Age-related differences in T cell subsets and markers of subclinical inflammation in aging are independently associated with type 2 diabetes in the Health and Retirement Study. Canadian Journal of Diabetes 47(7):594-602.e6.
- Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Colter Mitchell, Karadimas,Thomas Leonidas, Jessica Danielle Faul. 2023. Systemic inflammation and biological aging in the Health and Retirement Study. GeroScience 45:3257-3265 .
- Ramasubramian, Ramya, Kim, Jae Won, Guan, Weihua, Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Crimmins, Eileen, Jessica Danielle Faul, Thyagarajan, Bharat. 2023. Cohabitation as a determinant of adaptive and innate immune cell profiles: Findings from the Health and Retirement Study. Brain, Behavior, & Immunity - Health
- Seshadri, Gokul, Vivek, Sithara, Prizment, Anna, Crimmins, Eileen, Klopack, Eric, Jessica Danielle Faul, Guan, Weihua, Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Thyagarajan, Bharat. 2023. Immune cells are associated with mortality: The Health and Retirement Study. Frontiers in Immunology 14:1280144.
- Mark D. Peterson, Stacey Diane Collins, Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Alexander Brahmsteadt, Jessica Danielle Faul. 2022. Grip strength is inversely associated with DNA methylation age acceleration. Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle 14(1):108-115.
- Emily E. Lynch, Lorraine Halinka Malcoe, Sarah E. Laurent, Jason Richardson, Bruce C. Mitchell, Helen Carmon Spink Meier. 2021. The legacy of structural racism: Associations between historic redlining, current mortgage lending, and health. SSM - Population Health 14:100793.
- Simanek, Amanda M., Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Aimee A. D’Aloisio, Sandler, Dale P.. 2021. Objective and subjective childhood socioeconomic disadvantage and incident depression in adulthood: a longitudinal analysis in the Sister Study. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 56(7):1201-1210.
- MohammadShoeb, Helen Carmon Spink Meier, James M.Antonini. 2021. Telomeres in toxicology: Occupational health. Pharmacology & Therapeutics 220:107742.
- Grace Noppert, Feinstein, Lydia, Dowd, Jennifer B., Stebbins, Rebecca C., Zang, Emma, Needham, Belinda L., Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Simanek, Amanda, Aiello, Allison E.. 2020. Pathogen burden and leukocyte telomere length in the United States. Immunity & Ageing 17:Article 36.
- Chesley, Noelle, Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Luo, Jake, Apchemengich, Immaculate, Davies, W. Hobart. 2020. Social factors shaping the adoption of lead-filtering point-of-use systems: an observational study of an MTurk sample. Journal of Water and Health 18(4):505-521.
- Helen Carmon Spink Meier, Dale P. Sandler, Eleanor M. Simonsick, Nan-ping Weng, Christine G. Parks. 2020. Sex differences in the association between antinuclear antibody positivity with diabetes and multimorbidity in older adults: Results from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Experimental Gerontology 135:110906.
- Emily E. Lynch, Helen Carmon Spink Meier. 2020. The intersectional effect of poverty, home ownership, and racial/ethnic composition on mean childhood blood lead levels in Milwaukee County neighborhoods. PLOS ONE 15(6):e0234995.