Faculty Profiles

BIO

Briana Mezuk uses the tools of epidemiology to investigate the relationships between mental and physical health as people age, with an emphasis on how social factors shape those relationships.

She is currently leading two projects: First, the Aging, Transitions over the Life course, and Suicide (ATLAS) Project (funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, NIMH) is examining how major life events (e.g., becoming pregnant, retiring, experiencing a loss) shape suicide risk. This project leverages several existing cohorts at U-M and data from the National Violent Death Reporting System, a nationwide suicide mortality registry, to examine how these liminal periods contribute to suicide risk. Second, she is leading the effort to re-interview the National Survey of American Life (funded by the National Institute of Aging, NIA), a nationally-representative mental health survey of Black Americans, to examine pathways of risk and resilience for dementia in this population.

Finally, Dr. Mezuk is committed to training the next generation of population health scientists. She directs the NIMH-funded Michigan Integrative Well-Being and Inequality (MIWI) Training Program, which provides methods training and mentorship to interdisciplinary early-career health scholars, and co-directs the Analysis Core of the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research, an NIA-funded P30 center focused on minority aging.