Professor Umberson's research focuses on social factors that influence population health with a particular emphasis on aging and life course change, stress and social ties, and gender, sexuality, and racial variation in health disparities. Her recent research, supported by the National Institute on Aging, examines how marital relationships affect health-related behavior and health care, and how those processes vary across gay, lesbian, and heterosexual unions. In her current research, also supported by the National Institute on Aging, she focuses on racial/ethnic differences in exposure to the death of family members across the life course and the implications for long-term health and mortality disparities.
Umberson has served as editor of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Chair of the Mental Health, Marriage and Family, and Medical Sociology Sections of the American Sociological Association (ASA), and as vice president of the Association of Population Centers. She is an elected Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, 2020 recipient of the Leo G. Reeder Award for Distinguished Contributions to Medical Sociology from the ASA's Section on Medical Sociology, 2020 recipient of the ASA Family Section's Distinguished Career Award, 2016 recipient of the Leonard I. Pearlin Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Sociological Study of Mental Health from the ASA Section on Mental Health, and 2015 recipient of the Matilda White Riley Distinguished Scholar Award from the ASA Section on Aging and the Life Course.