Jennifer B Unger, PhD

Jennifer B. Unger, Ph.D. is a Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. Her research focuses on the psychological, social, and cultural influences on health-risk and health-protective behaviors among diverse populations. She and her colleagues have conducted longitudinal studies of acculturation, cultural stress, and substance use among Hispanic adolescents, highlighting the role of discrimination in health-risk behaviors. Her research also has examined cultural influences on tobacco use among American Indian adolescents, Chinese adolescents, and African American adults and neighborhood influences on adolescent cannabis use. She has collaborated on the design and evaluation of fotonovelas and telenovelas about secondhand smoke exposure in multiunit housing; diabetes; asthma; immunization; and kidney transplantation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she served as Associate Director of the USC Coronavirus Pandemic Research Center, which conducted studies of vaccine hesitancy among Los Angeles residents and USC students, staff, and faculty. She is a Project Leader in the USC Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science (TCORS), where she studies diffusion of messages about emerging tobacco products to vulnerable populations through social media. She has served as Program Leader of the Cancer Control program at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. She is currently Vice Chair for Faculty Development for the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences and Director of the Ph.D. program in Population and Public Health Sciences / Health Behavior Research.

• Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health: Ortho Pharmaceutical Scholar in Women’s Health, 1997
• University of Southern California: Southern California Studies Center Junior Faculty Award for Research on Southern California, 1998
• Jay Drotman Award, APHA

• Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD — BA — 1991 — Behavioral Biology
• University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA — Ph.D. — 1996 — Preventive Medicine / Health Behavior Research
• University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA — postdoc — 1997 — Gerontology

• Evolution of influencer-driven e-cigarette marketing on social media and its effect on e-cigarette perceptions and use patterns among adolescents
  NIH · R01CA300653 · Sep 3, 2026 – Aug 31, 2030 · Role: Principal Investigator
• Methodological Training for Social and Behavioral Research in Cancer Control
  NIH · T32CA298969 · May 1, 2026 – Apr 30, 2031 · Role: Co-Principal Investigator
• Project Firestorm: Assessing Respiratory and Mental Health Impacts of Wildland-Urban Interface Fires and Long-Term Toxic Exposures
  NIH · R21ES038077 · Aug 25, 2025 – Aug 24, 2027 · Role: Co-Principal Investigator
• Cultural Stress, Stress Response, and Substance Use among Hispanic Adolescents
  NIH · R01DA052079 · Sep 1, 2021 – Jun 30, 2026 · Role: Co-Principal Investigator
• Evaluating the impact of e-cigarette social media marketing on e-cigarette use among underage youth.
  NIH · R01CA260459 · Jul 19, 2021 – Jun 30, 2025 · Role: Principal Investigator
• Drug Use Among Hispanic Emerging Adults
  NIH · R01DA016310 · Apr 1, 2003 – Jan 31, 2018 · Role: Principal Investigator

• Adolescent health behaviors
• Health equity
• Cultural influences on health
• Acculturation
• Discrimination
• Tobacco control
• Social media
• Effects of COVID-19 pandemic on behavioral health and well-being
• Vaccine hesitancy

• Leventhal, Adam
• Barrington-Trimis, Jessica
• Sussman, Steven
• Harlow, Alyssa
• Vassey, Julia
• Pedersen, Eric