Rachel Kimbro

Rachel Kimbro is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rice University and a faculty affiliate of the Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life. Her research focuses on racial/ethnic health disparities, family influences on health behaviors, and cultural factors affecting health outcomes. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from an unspecified institution (dissertation topic: Intergenerational Differences in Health Behaviors for Mexican-Americans).

Key research areas include pregnancy risk perception, determinants of first birth timing in the U.S., maternal employment impacts on breastfeeding, and socioeconomic gradients in health. She completed the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in interdisciplinary population health.

Her work explores family structure effects on prenatal health behaviors and racial differences in health outcomes. Current projects analyze shifting trends in reproductive timing over four decades and the role of cultural cohesion in health behaviors among Mexican-Americans.