Balakrishnan Distinguished Lecture in Population Dynamics and Inequality

Zachary Zimmer
3:00pm - 4:00pm
Friday, November 1st, 2024
Location - Thames Hall Atrium

How Early Life War Trauma Can Impact on Later Life Health: A Focus on Aging in Vietnam

Zachary Zimmer received a PhD in Sociology with a concentration on Population Studies in 1998 from the University of Michigan. Since then, he held positions at a number of universities and scholarly organizations including the University of Nevada Las-Vegas, The Population Council, The University of Utah, and The University of California San Francisco. In 2016 Zimmer was awarded a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, which he now holds at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, where he is Professor in the Department of Family Studies and Gerontology and Director of the Global Aging and Community Initiative. His research applies global demographic perspectives to concerns of health and wellness of older persons worldwide. Dr. Zimmer has investigated an eclectic range of topics related to global aging, with recent endeavors including investigating religiosity and spirituality among older adults, effects of early-life wartime trauma on later-life health, trends in chronic pain, and intergenerational relationships in societies undergoing rapid socio-demographic change. He has published over 120 articles in journals that cross disciplines, such as gerontology, sociology, demography, public health, medicine, and epidemiology.

Abstract:

Evidence about the importance of early life experiences for later life health continues to grow. However, in many ways, the impact of war as an early life experience is understudied. This represents an oversight given the enormous health challenges that result from the aftermath of war trauma, and that war punctuates the lives of so many around the world that are moving into older ages, with numbers increasing. The Vietnam Health and Aging Study (VHAS), launched six years ago, is designed specifically to collect data that allows an empirical connection between varying levels of war trauma and later life health. First touching on how common is the experience of war among older persons, the lecture will then focus specifically on survivors of the Vietnam War, 1965 to 1975, providing a look at what the VHAS study has thus far been able to reveal with respect to the long-term impact of wartime trauma on health and aging.

Established in 2016, the goal of the Balakrishnan Distinguished Lecture in Population Dynamics and Inequality, to enhance the excellence in the Department of Sociology in Population Dynamics and Inequality and to give visibility for the University in this area in the academic world. The lecture series is made possible due to the support of Professor Emeritus T.R. Balakrishnan and Lois F. Leatham.

Past Lectures