Rutgers School of Public Health alumna and assistant adjunct professor in the department of epidemiology, Dr. Andrea Fleisch Marcus, has received the American College of Epidemiology (ACE) Best Junior Investigator Paper Award. Dr. Marcus received the award for her paper on how social ties impact mortality risk, which was part of her dissertation research.

Dr. Marcus, along with colleagues from the Rutgers School of Public Health, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, and the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, used data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to investigate the relationship between social ties and neighborhood poverty and how the two work together to impact people’s health. Dr. Marcus and her colleagues found that consistent with other research, the number and type of social contacts was an important predictor of mortality risk. What was unique about their findings, was that while neighborhood poverty was an important social risk factor for mortality, social relationships were more strongly related to mortality risk, independent of the type of neighborhood within which individuals resided.

Aside from her faculty appointment, Dr. Marcus is currently working at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals as an epidemiologist, where she primarily designs observational studies to assess the safety of the company’s products after they hit the market. On her experience at the Rutgers School of Public Health, Dr. Marcus Says, “I apply what I learned in my PhD training every day, specifically epidemiologic study design and statistical analyses. My time at the Rutgers School of Public Health has trained me well for my very rewarding career in the pharmaceutical industry.”