Skip to Main Content

INFORMATION FOR

    Xi Chen, PhD

    Associate Professor of Public Health (Health Policy) and Associate Professor at Institution for Social and Policy Studies
    DownloadHi-Res Photo

    Additional Titles

    Affiliated Faculty, Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC)

    Affiliated Faculty, Yale Institute for Global Health

    Affiliated Faculty, Department of Economics

    Contact Info

    Health Policy & Management

    Epidemiology & Public Health, PO BOX 208034

    New Haven, CT 06520-8034

    United States

    About

    Titles

    Associate Professor of Public Health (Health Policy) and Associate Professor at Institution for Social and Policy Studies

    Affiliated Faculty, Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC); Affiliated Faculty, Yale Institute for Global Health; Affiliated Faculty, Department of Economics

    Biography

    Xi Chen, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Public Health (Health Policy), of Global Health, of Economics, and of Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Yale University. He is a faculty fellow at the Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS), Yale Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Yale Center for Climate Change and Health, Yale Macmillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale Institute for Network Science (YINS), and a faculty advisor of the Yale-China Association. He is a PEPPER Scholar at Yale Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center. His research endeavors focus on economics and public policies on population aging, and global health systems. Currently, his main research projects involve: 1) Economics of cognitive aging and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD), using both medical claims data and survey data to investigate how cognitive aging may affect decision-making and healthcare utilization, and ADRD care quality, costs and equity; 2) Pension, retirement policies and health of the aging population; 3) The impact of environmental pollution and climate change on older adults; 4) life course factors and healthy aging.

    Professor Chen is a research fellow at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, fellow at the Global Labor Organization (GLO) and its Cluster Lead in Environment and Human Capital, Editor at the Journal of Population Economics, President of the China Health Policy and Management Society (CHPAMS) (2018-2020), and an Academic Committee member of the Global Lecture Series on Chinese Economy. He is an adjunct professor at Peking University and at SJTU-Yale Joint Health Policy Center of Shanghai Jiaotong University. He consults for the United Nations and the World Bank. He is an alumni affiliate of Cornell Institute on Health Economics, Health Behaviors & Disparities, Cornell Population Center, and Cornell Institute for the Social Sciences. He has served as a grant reviewer for the National Sciences Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), the Research Council of Norway, Guest Editor at the Journal of Asian Economics, a member of the editorial board at China CDC Weekly, and a reviewer for more than 30 peer-reviewed journals.

    Professor Chen's work has been recognized through numerous awards, including the Best China Paper from the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) (2011), the George Warren Award (2012), the Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Award from the AAEA (2013), the MacMillan Faculty Research Award (2013, 2017), USDA-ERS (2008), James Tobin Summer Research Award (2014-2022), the Kempf Award (2017-2018), awards from the National Institute of Health (NIH), the U.S. PEPPER Center Scholar Award (2016), Emerging Scholar and Professional Organization Interdisciplinary Paper Award of the Gerontology Association of America (2019), the Best Abstract Award at the Academy Health Research Meetings (2020). He is a Butler-Williams Scholar at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) (2019). His timely and rigorous economic evaluations on the COVID-19 pandemic won the Kuznets Prize (2021).

    His research projects funded by public and private funding sources has resulted in 110+ peer-reviewed publications, such as PNAS, LANCET, JAMA, PLoS Medicine, JAERE, JEEM, JoPE, EHP, SSM, JEoA, and AJAE. These studies have been widely covered 3,000+ times in popular media worldwide, such as BBC, CNN, CBS, WSJ, NYT, The Guardian, Financial Times, The Economist, The Washington Post, The Macmillan Report, The Times of London, NPR, NBC News, Reuters, Associated Press, Time Magazine, Fortune, Slate, Forbes, Bloomberg, CNBC, Al Jazeera, World Economic Forum, Science Magazine, Nature, DW, ABC (Australia), ABC (USA), EuroNews, Foreign Policy, FOX News, New Scientist, The Hill, National Geography, Foreign Affairs, The LANCET, RT, Xinhua News Agency, Global Times, and People's Daily, The Hill, CBC, VOA, The Telegraph, AFP, Scientific American, SCMP, The Independent, Yahoo Finance, VoX, Barron's, USA Today, LA Times, WIRED, VICE, The Atlantic, The Scientist Magazine. He is a commentator at BBC, CNN, EuroNews, CGTN. Chen has written opinion pieces for NYT. Chen has been invited by The National Committee on United States China Relations (NCUSCR) as a delegate of U.S. - China Healthcare Dialogue (Track II).

    In the past ten years, Professor Chen has supervised more than 30 postdoctoral fellows, PhD students and Yale College students who have won a number of outstanding paper awards. Chen has taught quantitative methods in health economics and health services research, as well as U.S.-China Health Systems at Yale.

    Chen obtained a Ph.D. in Applied Economics from Cornell University.

    Appointments

    Other Departments & Organizations

    Education & Training

    PhD
    Cornell University (2012)
    MS
    Nanjing Agricultural University (2007)

    Research

    Overview

    Professor Chen currently works on the following projects:

    • Leading a research team on economics of cognitive aging and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD), using both medical claims data and survey data to investigate how cognitive aging may affect decision-making and healthcare utilization, and ADRD care quality, costs and equity;
    • Leading investigations on social security reforms, retirement policies and health of the aging population;
    • Leading a research team to better understand the long lasting impact of air pollution and climate change on happiness, mental health, cognitive functioning, productivity, and the economy;
    • Co-leading a team to explores the linkage between the two ends of life to better understand how early childhood circumstances determine health disparities in old age;
    • Evaluating major medical reforms in China that affect behavior and well-being of 1.4 billion population;
    • Working on a novel transdisciplinary project, the CHALLENGE (China Longitudinal Environmental, Genetic, and Economic Cohort), that studies 30,000 children aged 0-6 years old who were recruited at conception;
    • Co-leading a longitudinal household survey in rural China with a unique social network data collection to better understand social networks and health behaviors.

    Medical Research Interests

    Aging; Air Pollution; Alzheimer Disease; Big Data; Child; Climate Change; Cognition; Dementia; Economics; Medicare; Pensions; Retirement; Social Behavior

    Public Health Interests

    Aging; Community Health; Global Health; Health Economics; Health Policy; Infectious Diseases; Nutrition; Obesity; Substance Use, Addiction; Child/Adolescent Health; Health Equity, Disparities, Social Determinants and Justice; Perinatal/Prenatal Health; Pollution; COVID-19

    Research at a Glance

    Yale Co-Authors

    Frequent collaborators of Xi Chen's published research.

    Publications

    2024

    Academic Achievements & Community Involvement

    • activity

      United Nations Research Institute for Social Development

    • activity

      Yale-China Association

    • activity

      National Science Foundation (NSF)

    • activity

      Peking University

    • activity

      Global Labor Organization

    Get In Touch

    Contacts

    Academic Office Number
    Mailing Address

    Health Policy & Management

    Epidemiology & Public Health, PO BOX 208034

    New Haven, CT 06520-8034

    United States

    Locations

    • 60 College Street

      Academic Office

      Ste 301

      New Haven, CT 06510