JIN Lei

Jin Lei

Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Research Interest
Medical Sociology, Social Epidemiology, Health Services Research, Demography, Sociology of Professions, Quantitative Methods

Personal Link
JIN Lei | Department of Sociology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Lei Jin received an MS in Statistics and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago. Before joining CUHK she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Robert Wood Johnson Scholars in Health Policy Program at Harvard University. Her overarching research interest lies in the interplay of health, medicine and social systems. She has published in journals such as DemographySocial Science & MedicineSocial Science Research and Health Affairs, among others. Jin’s work falls into two areas: the social determinants of health and the social organisation of health care. In the first area, she has examined how people’s social relationships are linked to their health-related outcomes. She has published papers assessing how marital status affects the utilisation of health care and how local and trans-local social ties influence rural-to-urban migrants’mental health by shaping their social comparisons. She is also interested in delineating how structural inequality affects individual health through psychosocial pathways. In her current projects, she is investigating how relative social status, status inconsistency and social mobility influence health, the consequences of migration for psychological well-being and the health effects of contextual social inequality in China. In the area of social organisation of health care, she has studied patient-doctor interaction in the US and the changing patterns in the use of Chinese medicine in China. Her on-going project focuses on professional autonomy among physicians in China’s public hospital reforms.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

  • 2022 Zhao, Xiaohang, Lei Jin, and Skylar Biyang Sun. 2022. “Early-Life Interparental Relationship Quality and Late-Life Depressive Symptoms: A Mediation Analysis.” Journal of Affective Disorders 313 : 137–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2022.06.072.
  • 2022 Jin, Lei, Lin Tao, and Xiangqian Lao. “Diverging Trends and Expanding Educational Gaps in Smoking in China.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 8 (January 2022): 4917. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19084917.
  • 2021  Jin, Lei, Xi Chen, Fen Lin, Yuchun Zou, and Haiyan Gao. “Does Education Matter for Psychological Recovery amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic? Evidence from a Panel Survey in Hubei, China.” Anxiety, Stress, & Coping  (September 22, 2021): 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2021.1978431.
  • 2021  Jin, Lei, Xiaohang Zhao, and Yuying Tong. “A Female Advantage? Gender Patterning of Psychological Well-Being among Migrants and Returnees in China.” Journal of Social Issues (2021). https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12467.
  • 2021  Zhao, Xiaohang, Lei Jin, and Skylar Biyang Sun. “‘Gone with the Land’: Effects of Land Expropriation on Health and Subjective Well-Being in Rural China.” Health & Place, July 7, 2021, 102614. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2021.102614.
  • 2021  Jin, Lei, and Chenyu Ye. “The Chinese Health Care System.” In Wiley Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology, edited by William C Cockerham. Wiley, 2021.
  • 2020  Zhao, Xiaohang, Lei Jin, and Skylar Biyang Sun. “The Bidirectional Association Between Physical and Cognitive Function Among Chinese Older Adults: A Mediation Analysis.” The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, July 17, 2020, 0091415020940214. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091415020940214.
  • 2019  Jin, Lei, Chenyu Ye, and Eric Fong. “Chapter 20. Sociology.” In Urban Health, edited by Sandro Galea, Catherine K Ettman, and David Vlahov. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
  • 2019  Jin, Lei, Tony Tam, and Lin Tao. “Well-off but Powerless? Status Incongruence and Psychological Well-Being in Contemporary China.” Social Science & Medicine 235 (August 1, 2019): 112345. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.05.050.
  • 2017  Jin, Lei. “Physician Autonomy and the Paradox of Rationalization: Clinical Pathways in China’s Public Hospitals.” Sociology of Development 3, no. 3 (September 1, 2017): 295–322. https://doi.org/10.1525/sod.2017.3.3.295.
  • 2016  Jin, Lei. “Migration, Relative Deprivation, and Psychological Well-Being in China.” American Behavioral Scientist 60, no. 5–6 (February 26, 2016): 750–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764216632826.
  • 2015  Jin, Lei, and Tony Tam. “Investigating the Effects of Temporal and Interpersonal Relative Deprivation on Health in China.” Social Science & Medicine 143 (October 2015): 26–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.08.014.
  • 2014  Menchik, Daniel A., and Lei Jin. “When Do Doctors Follow Patients’ Orders? Organizational Mechanisms of Physician Influence.” Social Science Research 48, no. 0 (2014): 171–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2014.05.012.
  • 2014  “China: Healthcare Delivery System” in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society, edited by William C. Cockerham, Robert Dingwall and Stella Quah London: Wiley-Blackwell.
  • 2013  Fan, JessieX, Ming Wen, Lei Jin, and Guixin Wang. “Disparities in Healthcare Utilization in China: Do Gender and Migration Status Matter?” Journal of Family and Economic Issues 34, no. 1 (2013): 52–63. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-012-9296-1.
  • 2012  Jin, Lei, Ming Wen, Jessie X. Fan, and Guixin Wang. “Trans-Local Ties, Local Ties and Psychological Well-Being among Rural-to-Urban Migrants in Shanghai.” Social Science & Medicine 75, no. 2 (2012): 288–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.03.014.
  • 2010  Jin, Lei. “From Mainstream to Marginal? Trends in the Use of Chinese Medicine in China from 1991 to 2004.” Social Science & Medicine 71, no. 6 (2010): 1063–67.
  • 2010  Wen, Ming, Jessie Fan, Lei Jin, and Guixin Wang. “Neighborhood Effects on Health among Migrants and Natives in Shanghai, China.” Health & Place 16, no. 3 (2010): 452–60.
  • 2010  Jin, Lei, Felix Elwert, Jeremy Freese, and Nicholas Christakis. “Preliminary Evidence Regarding the Hypothesis That the Sex Ratio at Sexual Maturity May Affect Longevity in Men.” Demography 47, no. 3 (2010): 579–86.
  • 2009  Jin, Lei, and Nicholas A. Chrisatakis. “Investigating the Mechanism of Marital Mortality Reduction: The Transition to Widowhood and Quality of Health Care.” Demography 46, no. 3 (2009): 605–25.
  • 2008  Clever, Sarah L., Lei Jin, Wendy Levinson, and David O. Meltzer. “Does Doctor-Patient Communication Affect Patient Satisfaction with Hospital Care? Results of an Analysis with a Novel Instrumental Variable.” Health Services Research 43, no. 5, Part I (2008): 1505–19.
  • 2008  Lei, Jin, Chin, Marshall H, Melinda L Drum, Morgan E. Shook, Elbert S. Huang, and David O Meltzer. “Variation in Treatment Preferences and Care Goals Among Older Patients With Diabetes and Their Physicians.” Medical Care 46:275-286.