Frederick J. Zimmerman, PhD, is faculty associate at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and a professor of health policy and management in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He also co-directs the UCLA Center for Health Advancement with Jonathan Fielding and is director of the departmental PhD and MS programs. In 2020, Zimmerman serves as president of the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Sciences.
Research illuminating how economic structure — including poverty and inequality — influence population health has been the focus of Zimmerman’s career. His work has been distilled into the multi-level theory of population health. He has also published extensively on the effects of child media use on subsequent health and development. His recent research topics include simulated comparative effectiveness of public health policies through the Win-Win project, which he directs. In addition, he continues to research the effects of social and economic policy on population health through such economic contextual factors as income inequality, the minimum wage, food marketing, and housing policy. Recently, Zimmerman developed a robust measure of health equity that permits valid comparisons of health equity over time and across jurisdictions.
Zimmerman was a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, West Africa, and holds an MS and PhD in economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Interview with Frederick J. Zimmerman, PhD, faculty associate at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and a professor of health policy management in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Based on a Health Affairs article Zimmerman co-wrote in 2022, “Population Health In America: Is Culture Stopping Us Dead In Our Tracks?”