Kerry Green
Director, BCH Undergraduate Honors Program
ADVANCE Professor, SPH
ADVANCE Professor, INFO
Principal Investigator, The Woodlawn Study
As a prevention scientist, Dr. Kerry Green’s work concentrates on improving the health and well-being of disadvantaged populations. Her research focuses on identifying the causes of adverse outcomes over the life course among urban African Americans, including structural factors. Much of this work has been with the Woodlawn Study, a community cohort study that began in 1965 and includes data spanning 55 years of the cohort’s lives with funding over time from NIDA, NIA and NICHD.
Departments/Units
- Department of Behavioral and Community Health
- School of Public Health
Areas of Interest
Health Equity; Urban Communities; Mental Health; Prevention Science; Aging
Dr. Kerry M. Green joined the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Public Health in August 2007 as an Assistant Professor after completing a post-doctoral fellowship in Prevention Science at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure in 2013. As a prevention scientist, her research has concentrated on improving the health and well-being of disadvantaged populations. Much of her work focuses on identifying the causes of health disparities over the life course among urban African Americans. Currently, she directs the department’s undergraduate honors program and the department’s Community Engagement Committee, as well as serves as Department Chair. She typically teaches one undergraduate course in the Fall and one doctoral course in the Spring semester, as well as directs doctoral dissertations and mentors faculty and students at all levels.
Her research is concentrated in two major areas: (1) risk and protective factors, including structural factors, over the life course and (2) the interrelationship of substance use, mental health, crime, and sexual health over the life course. Almost all of her work utilizes longitudinal cohorts, mostly urban cohorts followed from childhood to adulthood. Much of her work has been with the Woodlawn Study, a community cohort study that began in 1965. She coordinated the midlife follow-up (age 42) in 2002-03, and led the age 62 follow-up with funding from the National Institute on Aging (NIA). This 5-year R01 provides an unprecedented opportunity to take a life course perspective to prospectively examine how factors in childhood predict aging outcomes in at-risk African Americans. She has published extensively on this data with continuous NIH funding since 2006 from such institutes as the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the National Institute on Aging (NIA), and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).
PhD, Public Health, 2004
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
MA, Human Development, 1998
University of Maryland, College Park
B.S., Psychology, 1995
College of William of Mary
HLTH 410 Honors Seminar
HLTH 711 Advanced Research Methods in Health
Leda Amick Wilson Mentoring Award, University of Maryland School of Public Health, 2024
UMD SPH Research and Development Award (2020); Honoree, Maryland Research Excellence Celebration, 2020
Winston Family Honors Faculty Award, 2019
BCH 3.5 Club for Teaching Excellence, 2017
Leda Amick Wilson Mentoring Award, Maryland School of Public Health, 2011
Team Science Award, School of Public Health Research Interaction Day, 2011
George F. Kramer Practitioner of the Year Award, University of Maryland School of Public Health, 2019
NIH Loan Repayment Program, 2007-2012
Recent Publications
Woodard, N.,* Butler, J., Ghosh, D., Green, K.M., & Knott, C.L. (2023). The association between state-level structural racism and alcohol and tobacco use behaviors among a national probability sample of Black Americans. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, & Prevention. https://doi.org/10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-23-0873
Smith, S. A.,* Arria, A. M., Fryer, C. S., Roy, K., Green, K. M., & Dyer, T. V. (2023). “It just felt nice to be able to scream”: A qualitative examination of the experiences of college students participating in the Black Lives Matter Movement. Journal of Adolescent Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/07435584231202216
Doherty, E.E., & Green, K.M. (2023). Cohort profile: The Woodlawn Study. Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology.
Muñoz-Bohorquez, J.,* Parra, D.C., Saperstein, S.L., Aparicio, E.M., Lewin, A., & Green, K.M. (2023). Feasibility of implementing a mindfulness-based online pilot program for Latina immigrants and the staff that works with them. Mindfulness, 14, 1148-61. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-023-02123-6
Sifat, M.S.,* Kuo, C.,* Yoo, J.H.,* Holder, S.,* & Green, K.M. (2023). Associations between family factors, social integration and suicidal ideation across the life course of an urban African American cohort. Journal of Black Psychology, 49(3) 404-429.
Sifat, M.,* Huq, M., Baig, M., Tasnim, N., & Green, K.M. (2023). An examination of barriers to accessing mental health care, and their association with depression, stress, suicidal ideation, and wellness in a Bangladeshi university student sample. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(2), 904. 0.3390/ijerph20020904
Doherty, E.E. & Green, K.M. (2023). Offending and the long-term risk of death: An examination of mid-life mortality among an urban Black American cohort. British Journal of Criminology, 63(5), 1108-1128. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azac079
Holder, S.,* Sifat, M.,* Kuo, C., * & Green, K.M. (2022). The role of adolescent anxious mood, marijuana use, and locus of control in the school to prison pipeline. Education and Urban Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/00131245221124
Sifat M.S.,* Chiang, S., Amin, N., Traore, S., Irfan, A., & Green, K.M. (2021). Beyond performative activism: An exploration of motivators to participate in anti-racist activism through the lens of self-determination theory. Harvard Public Health Review, 35. https://hphr.org/53-article-sifat/
Sifat, M.S.,* Tasmin, N., Stoebenau, K., & Green, K.M. (2022). A qualitative exploration of university student perspectives on mindfulness-based stress reduction exercises via smartphone app in Bangladesh. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being, 17 (1). https://doi.org/10.1080/17482631.2022.2113015
Sifat, M.S.,* Saperstein, S., Tasnim, N. & Green, K.M. (2022). Motivations toward using digital health, and exploring the possibility of using digital health for mental health in Bangladesh university students: A cross-sectional questionnaire study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 6(3), e34901. doi: 10.2196/34901
Sifat, M.S.,* Tasnim, N., Hoque, N., Saperstein, S., Shin, R.Q., Feldman, R., Stoebenau, K. & Green, K.M. (2022). Motivations and barriers for clinical mental health help-seeking in Bangladeshi university students: A cross-sectional study. Global Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.1017/gmh.2022.24
Crum, R.M., Green, K.M., Amin-Esmaeili, M., Susukida, R., Mojtabai, R., Storr, C.L., Riehm, K.E., Young, A.S., & Reboussin, B.A., (2022). The role of mood disorders in the progression of and recovery from alcohol and drug use problems: A latent transition analysis. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 238. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2022.109566
Green, K.M., Doherty, E.E., & Bugbee, B.A. (2022). Can early disadvantage be overcome? A life course approach to understanding how disadvantage, education, and social integration impact mortality into middle adulthood among a Black American cohort. Prevention Science, 16, 1-12. 10.1007/s11121-022-01408-x
Assini-Meytin, L.C., Thorne, E., Green, K.M., Sanikommu, M., & Letourneau, E.J. (2022). Impact of child sexual abuse on socioeconomic attainment in adulthood. Journal of Adolescent Health, 71(5), 594-600. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2022.05.013
Green, K.M., Reboussin, B.A., Storr, C.L., Mojtabai, R., Susukida, R., Young, A.S., Cullen, B., Luken, A., Amin-Esmaeili, M., & Crum, R.M. (2022). Impact of early, weekly drinking on latent classes of alcohol involvement progression and recovery: Evidence from the NESARC Waves 1 and 2. Addictive Behaviors Reports, 15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.abrep.2022.100410
Doherty, E.E., Green, K.M., & Ensminger, M.E. (2022). Long-term consequences of criminal justice system intervention: The impact of young adult arrest on midlife health behaviors. Prevention Science, 23, 167-180. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-021-01236-5
Allen, H.K.,* Lilly, F., Green, K.M., Zanjani, F., Vincent, K.B., & Arria, A.M. (2022). Graduate student burnout: Substance use, mental health, and the moderating role of advisor satisfaction. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 20 (2) 1130-1146. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-020-00431-9
Saboori, Z.,* Gold, R.S., Green, K.M., & Wang, M.Q. (2022). Community health workers knowledge, attitudes, practices, and readiness to manage intimate partner violence. Journal of Community Health, 47 (1), 17-27. 10.1007/s10900-021-01012-0
Assini-Meytin, L.C., Fix, R.L., Green, K.M., Nair, R. & Letourneau, E.J. (2021). Adverse childhood experiences, mental health, and risk behaviors in adulthood: Exploring sex, racial, and ethnic group differences in a nationally representative sample. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-021-00424-3
Storr, C.L., Reboussin, B.A., Green, K.M. Mojtabai, R., Susukida, R., Young, A., Cullen, B.A., Alvanzo, A.A.H., & Crum, R. (2021). Stressful life events and transitions in problematic alcohol use involvement among US adults. Substance Use and Misuse, 56 (14), 2171-2080. https://doi.org/10.1080/10826084.2021.1975748
Rabinowitz, J. Reboussin, B.A., Thrul, J., Drabick, D.A., Kahn, G., Green, K.M., Ialongo, N.S., Huhn, A.S. & Maher, B.S. (2021). Early childhood behavioral and academic antecedents of lifetime opioid misuse among urban youth. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2021.1875324
Oguntimein, M.,* Butler III, J., Desmond, S., Green, K.M., He, X., & Horowitz, A.M. (2020). Patients’ understanding of the relationship between their diabetes and periodontal disease. Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 33 (6), 1004-1010. 10.3122/jabfm.2020.06.190454
Reboussin. B.A., Rabinowitz, J.A., Truhl, J., Maher, B., Green, K.M., & Ialongo, N.S. (2020). Trajectories of cannabis use and risk for opioid misuse in a young adult urban cohort. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2020.108182
Alvanzo, A.A.H., Storr, C.L., Reboussin, B., Mojtabai, R., Green, K.M., Pacek, L.R., La Flair, L.N., Cullen, B.A., Susukida, R., Seamans, M., & Crum, R.M. (2020). Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and transitions in alcohol involvement among US adults: Progression and remission. Child Abuse and Neglect, 107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104624
Green, K.M., Doherty, E.E., & Ensminger, M.E. (2020). What’s drugs got to do with it? Examining the relationship between drug onset and duration with criminal outcomes in an African American cohort. Addictive Behaviors, 110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2020.106539
Huang, D.,* Huang, Y., Khanna, S., Dwivedi, P., Slopen, N., Green, K.M., He, X., Puett, R., & Nguyen, Q. (2020). Twitter-derived social neighborhood characteristics and individual-level cardiometabolic outcomes: Cross-sectional study in a nationally representative sample. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 6 (3). http://doi:10.2196/17969
Rabinowitz, J., Powell, T., Sadler, R., Reboussin, B., Green, K.M., Milam, A., Smart, M., Furr-Holden, D., Latimore, A. & Tandon, D. (2020). Neighborhood profiles and associations with coping behaviors among low-income youth. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 49, 494-505. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01176-y
Allen, H.K,* Lilly, F., Green, K.M., Zanjani, F., Vincent, K.B., & Arria, A.M. (2020). Substance use and mental health problems among graduate students: Individual and program-level correlates. Journal of American College Health. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1725020
Assini-Meytin, L.,* Garza, M., & Green, K.M. (2019). Teen mothers' family support and adult identity in the emerging adulthood: Implications for socioeconomic attainment later in life. Emerging Adulthood. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2167696819879251
*=doctoral student co-author