Amanda M. Simanek, PhD, MPH

Dr. Amanda Simanek received her MPH in International Health Epidemiology and PhD in Epidemiologic Science from University of Michigan School of Public Health, where she trained as a social epidemiologist and then served as a member of the research faculty in the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health. Prior to joining RFU, she was a faculty member in the Joseph J. Zilber School of Public Health at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, helping to build new MPH and PhD programs in Epidemiology.

Dr. Simanek's research focuses on understanding psychosocial determinants of infectious disease, identifying novel biologic pathways by which social inequities in health develop across the lifecourse and are perpetuated across generations, and assessing best practices in science communication and infodemic management for impacting health behaviors in the context of public health crises. In addition, she is founding member and contributing writer for the social media-based science communication effort, Those Nerdy Girls, the mission of which is to help people make better health decisions by providing practical and factual health information, and, as trusted messengers, build the confidence people have to navigate such information and share their knowledge with others.

In her capacity as founding Director of the Michael Reese Foundation Center for Health Equity Research, she aims for the center to foster health equity-focused research collaborations that are responsive to community needs, address socio-structural determinants of health and involve implementation of interventions aimed at improving health equity in Lake County, IL.

Curriculum Vitae

Publications

Recent Publications

• Lara, S.T, Rein, L.E., Simanek, A.M., Totoraitis, M.F., Rausch, D.J., Weston, B., Ahn, K.W., Beyer, K.M. (2023) Asthma as a risk factor for hospitalization in children and youth with COVID-19: a retrospective cohort study. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2024 Jan 15. doi: 10.1097/INF.0000000000004248. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38241639.
• Ukraintseva, S., Duan, M., Simanek, A.M., Holmes, R., Bagley, O., Rajendrakumar, A.L., Yashin, A.P, Akushevich, I., Tropsha, A., Whitson, H., Arbeev, K. (2023) Vaccination against pneumonia may provide genotype-specific protection against Alzheimer’s disease. J of Alzheimers Dis. 96(2):499-505. doi: 10.3233/JAD-230088. PMID: 37807778; PMCID: PMC10657669.
• James, R., Albrecht, A., Buttenheim, A., Dowd, J., Kumar, A., Jones, M., Leininger, L., Simanek, A.M., Aronowitz, S. (2023) What were the information voids?: A Qualitative Analysis of Questions asked by Dear Pandemic readers between August 2020-August 2021. Special Issue “Leaving no one behind: Opportunities for improving future pandemic related communication”. J Health Commun. Apr 7;28(sup1):25-33. doi: 10.1080/10810730.2023.2214986. PMID: 37390014.
• Simanek, A.M., Xiong, M., Woo, J.M.P. , Zheng, C., Zhang, Y., Meier, H.C.S, and Aiello, A.E. (2023) Prenatal Socioeconomic Disadvantage, Adverse Birth Outcomes, and Inflammatory Response at Birth. Psychoneuroendocrinology. Mar 30;153:106090. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2023.106090.
• Golos, A., Guntuku, S., Piltch-Loeb, R., Leininger, L., Simanek, A.M., Albrecht, S., Kumar, A., Dowd, J.B., Jones, M. and Buttenheim, A. (2023) Themes and trends in COVID-19 information needs: topic modeling analysis of the Dear Pandemic question box. PLoS One. Mar 30;18(3):e0281773. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281773. PMID: 36996093; PMCID: PMC10062627.
• Woo, J.M.P., Parks, C.G., Lynch, E.E., Auer, P.L., Simanek, A.M., Konkel, R.H., Taylor, J., Sandler, D.P., Meier, H.C.S.M. (2022) Early life trauma and adult leukocyte telomere length. Psychoneuroendocrinology. Oct;144:105876. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2022.105876. Epub 2022 Jul 23. PMID: 35939862; PMCID: PMC9446387.
• Simanek, A.M., Mansala, R., Woo, J.M.P., Meier, H.C.S, Needham, B. and Auer, P.L. (2022) Prenatal Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Alterations to the Neonatal Epigenome Children in the Born in Bradford Cohort. Epigenetics. Jul 14:1-15. doi: 10.1080/15592294.2022.2098569. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35837690.
• Woo J.M.P, Simanek, A.M., O’Brien, K., Parks. C., Gaston, S., Auer, P., Konkel, R.H., Jackson, C., Meier, H.C.S, Sandler, D.P. (2022) Latent class models of early life trauma and incident breast cancer. Epidemiology, Sep 1;33(5):729- 738. doi: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000001507. Epub 2022 May 16. PMID: 35580243; PMCID: PMC9378657.
• Albrecht, S., Jones, M., Aronowitz, S., Dowd, J.B., Hale, L., Kumar, A., Leininger, L., Ritter, A.Z., Simanek, A.M., Whelan, C., and Buttenheim, A. (2022) Lessons Learned from Dear Pandemic, a Social Media-based Science Communication Project Targeting the COVID-19 Infodemic. Public Health Reports. Mar 3:333549221076544. doi: 10.1177/00333549221076544. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35238241.
• Leininger, L., Albrecht, S., Buttenheim, A., Dowd, J.B., Ritter, A., Simanek A.M., Valentino, M.J., Jones, M. (2022) Fight Like a Nerdy Girl: The Dear Pandemic Playbook for Combating Health Misinformation. American Journal of Health Promotion. Mar;36(3):563-567. doi: 10.1177/08901171211070956. PMID: 35164543; PMCID: PMC9354480. *Winner of the Editor in Chief Award 2022 and selected as 1 of 8 papers of the year by the American Journal of Health Promotion (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/08901171221140187).