Jennifer J. McGrath and her team take a pathways-to-policy approach to untangle the psychosocial determinants of child health inequalities, leading to insights into the pathophysiology of chronic disease precursors and their socioeconomic gradients in childhood and adolescence. Her innovative, interdisciplinary research spans psychophysiology, child clinical psychology, behavioral medicine, epidemiology and biomedical engineering. She uses wearable sensors to investigate how neighborhood exposures and social inequality influence children’s early risk for chronic diseases previously thought to emerge in adulthood. McGrath’s work underscores the importance of understanding how environments shape psychological and physiological processes to better inform the development of effective interventions and policies addressing child health disparities and advancing social justice. Her research focus on pediatric cardiovascular behavioral medicine and broader mental health considerations elucidates the complex connections between stress, sleep, circadian rhythms and overall health. McGrath’s team has made compelling insights into childhood stress, pediatric sleep, autonomic and endocrine dysregulation, and airborne nicotine and smoking initiation. She strives to transform how wearable data can improve health and health equity across the lifespan. She has also pioneered rigorous pediatric ambulatory measurement standards for wearables and advocates for the reproducibility of science through open-source data science methods
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