Tom Mueller, MS, PhD

Professional Background

J. Tom Mueller, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Population Health and Director of the Kansas Center for Rural Health at the University of Kansas Medical Center. As a rural sociologist and demographer, he studies the geography of well-being and the environment in rural America. Dr. Mueller’s work focuses on three primary areas: health and well-being in rural America, (2) environmental injustice and environmental health, and (3) the measurement and tracking of poverty across space.

Dr. Mueller has published his work in leading outlets such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; American Journal of Public Health; Nature Water; Nature Communications; Demography; and Rural Sociology, among others. Dr. Mueller pursues and receives funding from a variety of sources including the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the National Science Foundation.

• PhD, Rural Sociology & Human Dimensions of Natural Resources and the Environment, The Pennsylvania State University

Research

Overview

Dr. Mueller is currently the Principal Investigator on a U01 funded by the National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities which focuses on the impact of Medicaid Expansion on rural-urban ethnoracial mortality disparities, as well as the role poverty reduction has, or has not, played in that relationship. He is also leading an R21 project focused on water quality, bedrock, and health equity in Kansas and Oklahoma.