About Xinhua Yu

Xinhua Yu, MD, PhD, MS, is an epidemiologist with additional training in medicine and statistics, and the coordinator of the epidemiology doctoral program. Dr. Yu has extensive experience in cancer epidemiology, cardiovascular epidemiology, nutrition, obesity, and physical activity. He is an expert in managing and analyzing very large epidemiological and health care administrative datasets such as longitudinal epidemiological data, Medicare claims, SEER‐Medicare data, medical chart abstraction data, and health survey data. Dr. Yu's current research focuses on health disparities, epidemiology of aging, determinants of health care utilization among cancer survivors, quality of care, clinical epidemiology and epidemiological methods.

Education

• MD, Preventive Medicine, Shanghai Medical University
• PhD, Epidemiology, University of Minnesota at Twin Cities
• MS, Statistics, University of Minnesota at Twin Cities

Research Interests

• Disability, physical and functional limitation, and quality of life
• Mental health, substance abuse prevention, and neurological diseases in the population
• Social determinants of health, education, employment, income
• Healthcare data mining, systems science, and causal inference in machine learning
• Quality of health care among Medicare and Medicaid population
• Cancer epidemiology, prevention, and survivorship
• Public health emergency preparedness and management, infectious disease modeling, and assessing public health intervention strategies
• Nutrition epidemiology, obesity, physical activity, and health wellness

Selected Publications

1. Yu, X.; Gain, E.P.; Ajoku, M.J.; Kedia, S.K. Bidirectional Associations Between Alcohol Drinking and Depressive Symptoms Among US Adults Aged 50 to 75: The US Health and Retirement Study. Healthcare 2025, 13, 53. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare13010053.
2. Gain EP*, Yu X, Kedia SK, Naser AM, Bromley MI, Ajoku M, Mou X. Discontinuation of Antidepressants and the Risk of Medication Resumption among Community-Dwelling Older Adults with Depression in the US. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2024 Sep 13;21(9):1209. doi: 10.3390/ijerph21091209. PMID: 39338092; PMCID: PMC11431487. 
3. Yu X, Gain EP, Kedia SK. Bidirectional associations between alcohol drinking and depressive symptom scores among US older adults. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2024. (349). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2024.01.004. 
4. Yu X., Shiro-Geist C., Krolik P., Zhang X., Cai J. Disparities in the Quality of Employment Placement and Live Wage Employment by Counselor’s Training and Caseload among Their Clients with Disabilities. Journal of Forensic Vocational Analysis. 2024(1).
5. Bromley MI*, Gain EP, Kedia SK. Mzayek F, Ray M, Yu X. Burden of chronic and heavy opioid use among elderly community dwellers in US. Am. J. Prev. Medicine focus. 2024   
6. Yu X., Shiro-Geist C, Zhang X., Harmon, MJ, Kansakar Y, Krolik P., Goodwell ML. Having a master’s degree in Rehabilitation Counseling Leads to Higher Closure Rates Among Persons With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities From the Outcome Based Perspective. Journal of Applied Rehabilitation Counseling. 2023 (4).
7. Yu X., Shiro-Geist C, Zhang X., Harmon, MJ, Kansakar Y, Krolik P., Williams M, Goodwell ML, Cozort S.  The Outcome-Based Perspective: Benefits of Field-Specific Rehabilitation Counselor Education. Journal of Forensic Vocational Analysis. 2022 (1).
8. Chavan PP*, Kedia SK, Mzayek F, Ahn S, Yu X.  Impact of self-assessed health status and physical and functional limitations on healthcare utilization and mortality among older cancer survivors in US. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2021 Jun;33(6):1539-1547. doi: 10.1007/s40520-020-01654-5. Epub 2020 Jul 24. 
9. Yu X. Modelling the return of the Modeling Return of the Epidemic: Impact of Population Structure, Asymptomatic Infection, Case Importation and Personal Contacts. Travel Med Infect Dis. 2020 Sep-Oct;37:101858. doi: 10.1016/j.tmaid.2020.101858. Epub 2020 Aug 27. 
10. Yu X, Duan J*, Jiang Y, Zhang H. Distinctive trajectories of COVID-19 epidemic by age and gender: a retrospective modeling of the epidemic in South Korea. Int J Infect Dis. 2020;S1201-9712(20)30536-1. doi:10.1016/j.ijid.2020.06.101.