Jenna van Draanen

Assistant Professor

My research aims to enhance scientific understanding and address health disparities through the rigorous evaluation of interventions and their implementation methods. I focus on the social forces influencing mental health and substance use disorders, emphasizing the impacts of socioeconomic marginalization and childhood adversity. My work incorporates the perspectives of individuals with lived experience to ensure a comprehensive approach.

I approach my research with a life course perspective, which contextualizes childhood adversity within the framework of how adversities accumulate over time and across generations—a concept known as linked lives. While my primary appointment is in the School of Nursing, I am an interdisciplinary researcher. I joined the University of Washington from a postdoctoral fellowship in Sociology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and I hold a PhD in Community Health Sciences from UCLA.