Shannon Monnat
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, Rural Sociology, Demography and Sociology | Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA, UNITED STATES
Professor Monnat's research interests lie at the intersection of demography, sociology, and public health
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Industry Expertise (3)
Education/Learning
Research
Public Policy
Areas of Expertise (5)
Rural Demography
Health and Health Disparities
Spatial Differences in Drug, Alcohol and Suicide Mortality
Stratification and Inequality
Research Methods and Statistical Analysis
Biography
Shannon Monnat is an assistant professor of rural sociology, demography, and sociology. Her areas of expertise are social demography, social and spatial determinants of health and health disparities, social stratification and inequality, and research methods and statistical analysis.
Monnat's projects fit into three broad categories: social and spatial disparities in health care access, use, and outcomes; policy and program paricipation impacts on health; and social and spatial variation in opiate abuse.
Education (3)
University at Albany, State University of New York: Ph.D., Sociology 2008
State University of New York at Oswego (SUNY Oswego): B.A., Sociology 2001
Jefferson Community College: A.A., Humanities and Social Sciences 1999
Links (3)
Media Appearances (6)
The new face of suburbia: Economic woes and early death
CBS News
2017-03-29
“There’s a desire to escape from stress and anxiety and hopelessness and shame,” said Shannon Monnat, a sociologist at Pennsylvania State University. She noted that deaths from drug overdoses are highest among white men but are rising fastest among women. “Swaths of the country are doing pretty badly.” She added, “The evidence is growing stronger every day that income inequality is bad for health.”...
White and dying in America
U.S. News and World Report
2017-03-27
These are exactly the areas where Trump did his best. He over-performed the most in counties with the highest drug, alcohol and suicide mortality rates, according to Shannon Monnat, a political science researcher at Penn State University. She determined he also did the best in the counties with a large working class and high economic stress...
‘Deaths of Despair’ fuel rising midlife mortality for white Americans
Fox40
2017-03-23
“And when the jobs just aren’t there, they sink into depression or that feeling of general hopelessness,” according to Shannon Monnat, a professor of rural sociology from Penn State University. Monnat published a study in December showing that counties with the highest rates of “deaths of despair” voted more heavily for Donald Trump in the last election than they did for Mitt Romney in 2012...
In Pennsylvania, troubles lead some to drugs, others to Trump
CNN
2017-03-16
Shannon Monnat, a professor of rural sociology from Penn State University, attributes the state's opioid epidemic to the socioeconomic problems that plague places like Luzerne County. Jobs are dwindling, particularly those in the industries that used to be so prevalent in the Rust Belt. "There's a lot of blue-collar hard workers in this area," she said. "And when the jobs just aren't there, they sink into depression or that feeling of general hopelessness." And it's hopelessness that might send some -- like Ryan Cooper -- to drugs...
The ghost bosses
The Atlantic
2017-03-13
“Stability has been replaced by chaos,” Shannon Monnat, a sociologist and demographer at Penn State University who researches the interplay between economics and health, says of such situations. The longer the stress lasts, whether it involves family, community, or work, the more disheartened people become and the more faith they lose in the system, until, finally, they disconnect to survive...
Study: Communities most affected by opioid epidemic also voted for Trump
NPR
2016-12-17
Shannon Monnat was watching election returns last month when she thinks she noticed a pattern. Professor Monnat's an assistant professor of rural sociology and demography at Penn State University, and she's been studying drug and alcohol mortality rates. She joins us now from Lowville, N.Y. Thanks very much for being with us...
Research Focus (4)
Research Interests
My research interests lay at the intersection of demography, sociology, and public health. My current efforts largely focus on social, behavioral, and spatial determinants of health and health disparities among adolescents, young adults, and families along the U.S. rural-urban continuum. My projects fit into three broad categories:
Demographic and Spatial Variation in Opiate Misuse and other Diseases and Deaths of Despair
Addiction and overdoses from opiates (prescription opioids and heroin) have increased dramatically over the past two decades to become a national epidemic and major US public health and policy issue. Mortality rates from other drugs, alcohol and suicide have also increased and vary dramatically across the U.S. to affect certain types of people and places more than others. My research in this area focuses on spatial differences in and demographic, economic, and social correlates of adult and adolescent opiate abuse, overdose mortality, and other "diseases and deaths of despair".
Social and Spatial Disparities in Health Care Access, Use, and Outcomes
This line of research examines racial/ethnic differences in health care access and utilization; differences in health care access and utilization among Hispanics in new vs. established destinations along the rural-urban continuum; rural/urban differences in adolescent HPV vaccination; and associations between adverse childhood experiences and adult health.
Policy and Program Participation Impacts on Health
I am interested in associations between various social and public health policies, social safety net program participation, and child and family well-being. Specific projects include analyses of racial/ethnic differences in transitions off TANF; the spatially heterogeneous effects of SNAP participation on food insecurity and children's health outcomes; associations between state policies on immigrant eligibility for health and social services and Hispanic health care access and utilization; and predictors of school physical education policies/practices and associations between those policies/practices and children's physical activity outcomes.
Articles (5)
District and school physical education policies: Implications for physical education and recess time
Annals of Behavioral Medicine
2013 Background: The relationship between physical education (PE) policies and children’s PE and recess time is not well understood.
Do perceptions of social cohesion, social support, and social control mediate the effects of local community participation on neighborhood satisfaction?
Environment and Behavior
2011 This article investigates the effects of social cohesion, social support, social control, and active local community participation on neighborhood satisfaction among individuals living in Los Angeles County. Utilizing the LAFANS dataset and proportional odds regression models, the authors find that net of individual demographic and socioeconomic status, perceptions of social cohesion, and social control are associated with greater levels of neighborhood satisfaction, whereas perceptions of neighborhood social support have no effect on satisfaction. Furthermore, formal involvement in one’s neighborhood is associated with greater levels of satisfaction only in certain contexts and only for certain types of involvement.
Rural/urban differences in self-rated health: Examining the roles of county size and metropolitan adjacency
Health & Place
2011 This research explored the roles of ‘rurality’ – nonmetropolitan county population size and adjacency to metropolitan areas – on self-rated health among a nationally representative sample of US adults. Using seven years of pooled individual level data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and county-level data from the County Characteristics survey, we found that residents of remote rural counties have the greatest odds of reporting bad health and that the significant differences in self-rated health between metropolitan residents and residents of rural areas can be entirely explained by rural structural disadvantage, including higher rates of unemployment and population loss and lower levels of educational attainment.
The color of welfare sanctioning: Exploring the individual and contextual roles of race on TANF case closures and benefit reductions
The Sociological Quarterly
2010 This article investigates the individual and contextual roles of race on welfare sanctions: benefit cuts for failing to comply with work or other behavioral requirements under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Using six years of federal administrative data, I advance previous welfare research by providing a nationally representative analysis of participant-, county-, and state-level predictors of welfare sanctioning. Using theories of racial classification, racialized social systems, and racial threat as guiding frameworks, I find that black and Latina women are at a greater risk of being sanctioned than white women. Further, although odds of a sanction are slightly reduced for black women living in counties with greater percentages of blacks, the opposite holds for Latinas, who are at an increased risk of being sanctioned in counties with greater percentages of Latinos.
Enterprising women: A comparison of women's and men's small business networks
Gender and Society
2009 This study demonstrates the importance of social context to the study of networks vital to business success. Results from analyses of the personal and business characteristics associated with different types of networks, a topic that has been neglected in past research, show the importance of structural perspectives emphasizing that women and men in the same situations have similar networks. Yet there are some network differences even among these women and men who operate the same kinds of businesses. This suggests that insights from gender construction perspectives should be integrated into network and other gender inequality studies.
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