Patricia A. Thomas

Specialization

aging, life course, social relationships, social position, health

Patti Thomas joined the Sociology Department at Purdue in 2013 as an Assistant Professor after a postdoctoral fellowship at The University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology at Duke University in 2010. Her research focuses on the impact of social relationships and social position (e.g., race, gender, socioeconomic status) on health outcomes across the life course. She has examined support and strain in social relationships and their impact on health across different stages of the life course, social engagement among older adults, giving and receiving social support among older adults, and the impact of socioeconomic status on racial variations in mortality. Her research has appeared in American Journal of Public Health, Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, and Social Science & Medicine.

She is a Faculty Associate in the Center on Aging and the Life Course.