The Geographies of Inequity & Opportunity in Health, or GEOHEALTH Lab, is Dr. Louisa Holmes’ Penn State Research Lab. Our research focuses on geographies of structural inequity, population health disparities, and opportunities to improve population health in urban and suburban environments.

Our research frameworks include Built Environments & Urban Planning, Environmental Injustice & Climate Change, and how Structural Determinants (e.g., poverty, racism, migration, toxic exposures) get under the skin to influence health and disease outcomes.

Topics of particular interest include substance use and mental health; stress and coping at individual and neighborhood levels; microbiome, physiological dysfunction, and chronic disease; and policy change and planning interventions to improve population health.

We have broad methodological expertise in sampling and design, survey research and observational data collection, quantitative and geospatial analysis, mixed methods, and qualitative and documentary data collection and analysis.

Our research aligns with many of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, in particular, SDGs 1, 3, 5, 10 and 11.

Dr. Holmes is an Associate Professor of Geography and Demography at Penn State University, and is co-funded by the Consortium on Substance Use & Addiction in the Social Science Research Institute.