Monnat’s research interests broadly fall at the intersection of place, public policy, and health. A common theme binding much of her research is a concern for rural people and places. Her most recent research has focused on fatal drug overdose and other diseases and deaths of despair, particularly trying to understand why rates of substance abuse and mortality are higher in some places than others.

She has published over 70 peer-reviewed academic journal articles, book chapters, research briefs, and reports, and has presented her research to numerous public, academic, and policy audiences, including the United Nations, the National Academy of Sciences, the Aspen Institute, and at Congressional briefings. Her research has been featured in several media outlets, including CNN, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Atlantic.

Montez’s research examines the large and growing inequalities in adult mortality across education levels and geographic areas within the United States. She is particularly interested in why the growing inequalities have been most troublesome among women. Her current work on this topic blends perspectives from social demography and feminist geography to investigate the role of U.S. states in shaping women’s and men’s mortality in unique ways. In another line of research she examines whether and why experiences in childhood, such as poverty and abuse, have enduring consequences for health during later life.

She received her PhD in Sociology with a Demography specialization at the University of Texas at Austin in 2011. Afterwards Montez spent two years at the Harvard School of Public Health as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar, and then two years at Case Western Reserve University as an Assistant Professor of Sociology.