Iliya Gutin

Iliya Gutin is a social demographer and population health researcher, interested in documenting the many ways individual, institutional, and contextual level determinants of patterns and trends in morbidity and mortality, with a particular interest in health behaviors, reported health, biomarkers and specific causes of death.

Iliya is also a medical sociologist, interested in better understanding and evaluating the conceptualization and measurement of health in medicine and research. His work on these subjects has been published in the Annual Review of Sociology, Demographic Research, Demography, Preventative Medicine, Social Science & Medicine, Social Science Research, Social Theory & Health, and Sociology of Health & Illness, among other outlets.

His current work addresses international and intranational variation in health, using both vital statistics and survey data to understand poor and declining health in the United States throughout the life course. Iliya also has ongoing projects centered on the determinants and consequences of harmful behaviors like substance use and suicidality, as well as ongoing work developing multidimensional measures of health integrating different biological and social indicators.

Prior to his current position, Iliya was a program officer with the Committee on Population at the National Academy of Sciences. He was also a postdoctoral researcher at the Population Research Center and Center on Aging and Population Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin from 2021 to 2023.

He received a Ph.D. in sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2021, having received a B.A. in sociology at the University of Chicago and then worked at NORC as a research analyst.

"Early-life Mortality Trends in the United States between 1990 and 2024", Sponsored by NICHD.

• Journal Articles
  • Wolf, D. A., Wiemers, E. E., Gutin, I., Montez, J. and Monnat, S. M., "COVID-19 Mitigation Policies Were Associated with Increased Gun Violence During 2020-2021." American Journal of Epidemiology, 2026.
  • Copeland, W. E., Prytherch, S., Rothenberg, W. A., Godwin, J. W., Gaydosh, L., Gutin, I., Tong, G. and Shanahan, L., "Impact of Positive Young Adulthood Transitions on Adult Mental Health Problems." Psychological Medicine, 2025.
  • Gutin, I., Gaydosh, L., "Research Note: Does despair in young adulthood predict mortality?." Demography, 2025.
  • London, A. S., Antshel, K. M., Grove, J., Gutin, I. and Monnat, S. M., "Self-Reported ADHD Diagnosis and Illicit Drug Use and Prescription Medication Misuse among U.S. Working-Age Adults." Journal of Attention Disorders, 2025.
  • Zhang, X., Gutin, I., Monnat, S. M. and Montez, J. K., "Spatiotemporal Trends in the Industrial Composition of Counties and Working-age Mortality, 2000-2022." SSM-Population Health, 2025.
  • Wiemers, E. E., Monnat, S. M., Wolf, D. A., Montez, J. K., Grove, J., Gutin, I. and Grossman, E., "States’ COVID-19 Policies and Suicide among U.S. Adults." Health Affairs Scholar, 2025.
  • London, A. S., Monnat, S. M. and Gutin, I., "The Prevalence of ADHD among Working-Aged Adults in the United States: Evidence from the 2023 National Wellbeing Survey." Journal of Attention Disorders, 2025.
  • Gaydosh, L., Copeland, W. E., Shanahan, L., Godwin, J. W., Gutin, I. and Harris, K. M., "The Role of Despair in Predicting Self-Destructive Behaviors." Population Research & Policy Review, 2025.
  • Bridger-Staatz, C., Gutin, I., Tilstra, A., Ploubidis, G., Dowd, J. and Gaydosh, L., "Health in Midlife in the UK And USA: International Comparison of Two Nationally Representative Cohorts." International Journal of Epidemiology, 2024.
  • Ignatow, G., Gutin, I., "Elite Class Self-Interest, Socioeconomic Inequality, and U.S. Population Health." Sociology of Health & Illness, 2024.
  • Rothenberg, A. W., Godwin, J. W., Copeland, W. E., Shanahan, L., Gaydosh, L., Gutin, I. and Coltrane, A., "Honoring John Schulenberg’s Legacy By Taking The “Long View” On The Effects of Adolescent Experiences on Substance Use In Adulthood: Examining the Moderating Role of Successful Transitions to Adulthood." Journal of Research on Adolescence, 2024.
  • Gutin, I., "Diagnosing Social Ills: Theorizing Social Determinants of Health as a Diagnostic Category." Sociology of Health & Illness, 2024.
  • Gutin, I., Copeland, W., Godwin, J., Harris, K. M., Shanahan, L. and Gaydosh, L., "Defining Despair: Assessing the Multidimensionality of Despair and its Association with Substance Misuse and Suicidality in Early to Middle Adulthood." Social Science & Medicine, 2023.
  • Tilstra, A. M., Gutin, I., Dollar, N. T., Rogers, R. G. and Hummer, R. A., ""Outside the Skin": 2022. The Persistence of Black–White Disparities in US Early-Life Mortality." Demography, 2022.
  • Gutin, I., "Not ‘Putting a Name to It’: Managing Uncertainty in the Diagnosis of Childhood Obesity." Social Science & Medicine, 2022.
  • Gutin, I., Hummer, R. A., "Social Inequality and the Future of Life Expectancy in the U.S." Annual Review of Sociology, 2021.
  • Bollen, K. A., Gutin, I., "Trajectories of Subjective Health: Testing Longitudinal Models of Self-Rated Health." Demography, 2021.
  • Gutin, I., "BMI is Just a Number: Conflating Risk and Unhealthiness in Discourse on Body Size." Sociology of Health & Illness, 2021.
  • Fishman, S. H., Gutin, I., "Debts of despair: Education, financial losses, and precursors of deaths of despair." SSM-Population Health, 2021.
  • Bollen, K. A., Gutin, I., Halpern, C. T. and Harris, K. M., "Subjective health in adolescence: Comparing the reliability of contemporaneous, retrospective, and proxy reports of overall health." Social Science Research, 2021.
• Book Chapter
  • Hummer, R. A., Gutin, I., "Racial/Ethnic and Nativity Disparities in the Health of Older US Men and Women." In Future Directions for the Demography of Aging: Proceedings of a Workshop. National Academies Press, 2018.
• Edited Volume
  • Research Agenda for Improving Economic and Social Mobility in the United States. Shaefer, L. H., Torche, F., Majmundar, M. K. and Gutin, I. (eds.) National Academies Press, 2025.
• Research Briefs
  • Wolf, D. A., Wiemers, E. E., Gutin, I., Montez, J. and Monnat, S. M., "Pandemic Mask Mandates and Closures Were Linked to Increased Gun Violence." Lerner Center Population Health Research Brief Series, 2026.
  • Zhang, X., Gutin, I., Monnat, S. M. and Montez, J., How Does County Industry Mix Matter for Working-Age Mortality?. Lerner Center Population Health Research Brief Series, 2025.
• Technical Reports
  • Monnat, S. M., Gutin, I., National Wellbeing Survey, 2022: Methodology Report. , 2025.
  • Monnat, S. M., Gutin, I., National Wellbeing Survey, 2023: Methodology Report. , 2025.
  • Monnat, S. M., Gutin, I., National Wellbeing Survey, 2024: Methodology Report. , 2025.
  • Gaydosh, L., Yang, T., Gutin, I. and Frizzelle, B., Add Health Wave V Documentation: Contextual Despair. , 2024.
  • Monnat, S. M., Gutin, I., Zhang, X. and Rhubart, D., National Wellbeing Survey, 2021: Methodology Report.. , 2024.

Maryland Population Research Center, "Conceptualizing “Capacity for Population Health”: Spatial Variation in Life Expectancy Trends in the United States and Peer Countries, 1980-2021" (October, 2025)

American Sociological Association, "Diagnosing Social Ills: Theorizing Social Determinants of Health as a Diagnostic Category" (2025)

Gutin, I., Gaydosh, L., Population Association of America, "Does despair in young adulthood predict mortality?" (2025)

Gutin, I., Monnat, S. M., Montez, J., Wiemers, E. E., Wolf, D. A., Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health, "State Policy Contexts, COVID-19 Response Policies, and Mental Health among U.S. Working-Age Adults" (2025)

Gutin, I., Montez, J., Monnat, S. M., Wiemers, E. E., Wolf, D. A., American Sociological Association, "U.S. State Policy Contexts, County Economic Contexts, and Working-Age Mortality" (2025)

Gutin, I., Montez, J., Monnat, S. M., Wiemers, E. E., Wolf, D. A., Population Association of America, "U.S. State Policy Contexts, County Economic Contexts, and Working-Age Mortality" (2025)

Gaydosh, L., Gutin, I., Add Health Users Conference, "Contextual Factors Relevant for External Causes of Death: Policy, Availability, and Population Health" (2024)

Gutin, I., Bridger-Staatz, C., Tilstra, A., Ploubidis, G., Dowd, J., Gaydosh, L., Population Association of America Meeting, "Health in Midlife in the UK And USA: International Comparison of Two Nationally Representative Cohorts" (2024)

MORTAL, "Life Expectancy Trends among U.S. States and Peer Countries, 1980-2020: Estimating the Impact of the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic on Widening Differences" (2024)

Oxford University, Unit for Biocultural Variation and Obesity, "When the Measure Becomes the Metric: Making Sense of the Body Mass Index in Research and Practice" (November, 2023)

Gutin, I., Bridger-Staatz, C., Tilstra, A., Ploubidis, G., Dowd, J., Gaydosh, L., Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science, "Health in Midlife in the UK And USA: International Comparison of Two Nationally Representative Cohorts" (2023)

Gutin, I., Masters, R. K., Population Association of America, "Illustrating the Racialized Mortality Experiences of the U.S. COVID-19 Pandemic via Quarter-Year Changes in U.S. Life Expectancy, 2019-2022" (2023)

Gutin, I., Masters, R. K., MiCDA- TRENDS Network, "Life Expectancy Trends among U.S. States and Peer Countries, 1980-2020: Estimating the Impact of the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic on Widening Differences" (2023)

Oxford University, Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, "Doing Good “Human Science”: Interdisciplinary Rigor in Research and Pedagogy" (July, 2022)

Add Health Users Conference, "Longitudinal Considerations in Contextual Data Analysis" (July, 2022)

Duke Center for Childhood Obesity Research, "Not ‘Putting a Name to It’: Managing Uncertainty in the Diagnosis of Childhood Obesity" (May, 2022)

Population Association of America, "Body Size, Cardiometabolic Risk, and Educational Disparities in Mortality Among U.S. Adults, 1988-2015" (2022)

Gutin, I., Copeland, W., Godwin, J., Harris, K. M., Hill, S., Shanahan, L., Gaydosh, L., Population Association of America, "Defining Despair: Assessing the Multidimensionality of Despair and its Association with Substance Misuse and Suicidality in Early to Middle Adulthood" (2022)

Gutin, I., Copeland, W., Godwin, J., Shanahan, L., Gaydosh, L., Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science, "Defining Despair: Assessing the Multidimensionality of Despair and its Association with Substance Misuse and Suicidality in Early to Middle Adulthood" (2022)

Gutin, I., Harris, K. M., Aiello, A., Martin, C., Gaydosh, L., Integrating Genetics and the Social Sciences Conference, "Feeling your (epigenetic) age: Using epigenetic clocks to understand self-rated health" (2022)

Gutin, I., Masters, R. K., Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science, "Illustrating the Racialized Mortality Experiences of the U.S. COVID-19 Pandemic via Quarter-Year Changes in U.S. Life Expectancy, 2019-2022" (2022)

Tilstra, A. M., Dowd, J. B., Gutin, I., Aburto, J. M., Population Association of America, "Obesity Deaths: How Different Coding Schemas Affect U.S. Life Expectancy Estimates" (2022)

Australia National University, Department of Sociology, "Finding “Meaning”: Making sense of imperfect theories, concepts, measures, and models in sociological research" (January, 2022)

Carolina Population Center Interdisciplinary Research Seminar, "Which Longitudinal Model Should I Choose?" (February, 2021)

Advancing Health Lifestyles Research Mini-Conference, ""The Patient Five, Ten, Twenty Years from Now": Communicating Risk and Defining Success in Childhood Obesity Diagnosis and Treatment" (2021)

American Sociological Association, "Double Jeopardy: The Cumulative Toll of Objective and Subjective Weight Status on Health from Early Life to Adulthood" (2021)

Population Association of America, "Double Jeopardy: The Cumulative Toll of Objective and Subjective Weight Status on Health from Early Life to Adulthood" (2021)

Bollen, K. A., Gutin, I., American Sociological Association, "Trajectories of Subjective Health: Testing Longitudinal Models of Self-Rated Health" (2021)

Bollen, K. A., Gutin, I., Population Association of America, "Trajectories of Subjective Health: Testing Longitudinal Models of Self-Rated Health" (2021)

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Gillings School of Public Health, Department of Health Behavior, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Obesity: Weight-Neutrality in Research on Body Size and Health" (January, 2021)

Most Influential Papers, Palgrave Macmillan (2025)

Poster Award Winner, PAA Meeting, Atlanta (2022)

Wilson Teaching Award, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2021)

Graduate Student Pilot Research Fund, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2020)

Odum Award for Research Excellence, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2020)