Paola Andrea Echave

Adjunct Faculty

Sociology: Immigration, Population Health, Immigration and International Policy, Labor Exploitation, Latin America, International Research

Paola Echave, PhD, is a senior research associate in the Tax and Income Supports Division at the Urban Institute and an adjunct faculty member at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at George Mason University. Her areas of expertise include immigration and health. She has extensive training in quantitative and qualitative methods and experience using and designing large-scale social science and demographic surveys. Some of her more recent research focuses on the role of immigration enforcement on the health, economic, and social well-being of brown, Black, and immigrant communities. She is currently the project manager of the Annual Survey of Refugees for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She is also the project manager of a study on preventing labor trafficking in Mexico, which is part of the Program to End Modern Slavery for the U.S. Department of State. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals and has been featured in many media outlets, including DC New Now, ScienceDaily, Ohio State News, Fox 8 News, Chicago Tribune, and international outlets, such as The UK Times.

Before joining the Urban Institute and GMU, Echave worked as a research assistant at The Ohio State University where she conducted research and published work on the role of obesity on the risk of mortality and trends of specific health outcomes across birth cohorts in the U.S. Echave also worked for community re-entry programs in New Mexico and assisted Victims’ Advocates with translation and interpretation services for victims and witnesses. Echave holds a doctorate in sociology from the Ohio State University, master’s degrees in sociology from the same university and BA in criminology from the University of New Mexico.

Selected Publications

Echave, Paola and Dulce Gonzalez. (2024). “Immigration Enforcement and COVID-19 Death Disparities among Latinx People.” Washington, DC: Urban Institute

Schmeer, Kammi, Paola Echave & Hollie Nyseth Nzitatire. (2023). “Exposure to Armed Conflict and HIV Risk Among Rwandan Women.” Demography, 60(4), 1181-1205.

Zheng, Hui & Paola Echave. (2022) “Are Recent Cohorts Getting Worse? Trends in U.S. Adult Physiological Status, Mental Health, and Health Behaviors across a Century of Birth Cohorts.” American Journal of Epidemiology, 90(11), 2242-2255.

Zheng, Hui, Paola Echave, Neil Mehta, & Mikko Myrskylä. (2021). “Life-long body mass index trajectories and mortality in two generations.” Annals of Epidemiology, 56, 18-25.

Zheng, Hui, Paola Echave & Neil Mehta. (2020). “Obesity-mortality link over the life course: the contribution of population compositional changes.” Biodemography and Social Biology, 66(1), 50-68.

Zheng, Hui, Jonathan Dirlam, & Paola Echave. (2020). “Divergent Trends in the Effects of Early Life Factors on Adult Health.” Population Research and Policy Review, 1-30.