Jennifer Singh
Associate Chair and Associate Professor
- School of History and Sociology
- ADVANCE IAC
Overview
Jennifer S. Singh is associate professor in the School of History and Sociology. She has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, San Francisco and specializes in medical sociology and science and technology studies. Her research investigates the intersections of genetics, health and society, which draws on her experiences of working in the biotechnology industry in molecular biology and as a public health researcher at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Her book, Multiple Autisms: Spectrums of Advocacy and Genomic Science, explores a range of perspectives from scientists, activists, parents, and people living with autism surrounding the rise and implementation of autism genetics research. In addition to research on the social and scientific understandings of diseases based on emerging medical technologies, Singh is also conducting research on the structural inequities to autism diagnosis and services based on race, class and gender. She is also co-founder of the Break the Cycle of Autism Disparities Working Group that brings together different areas of expertise across academic and private institutes in Atlanta, GA who are dedicated to investigating and addressing autism service disparities across the lifespan.
- Ph.D. in Sociology, University of California, San Francisco
- Master of Public Health, Institute for Public Health Genetics at the University of Washington, School of Public Health and Community Medicine
- B.S. in Biological Sciences from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Distinctions:
- Serve Learn Sustain (SLS) Award for Excellence in Sustainability Teaching https://serve-learn-sustain.gatech.edu/professor-jennifer-singh-winner-2019-sls-award-excellence-community-engaged-sustainability-teaching
Interests
- Agriculture, Health, and the Environment
- Modern Global History/Science, Technology, and Nationalism
- Science and Technology Studies
- U.S. Society and Politics/Policy Perspectives
Focuses:
- North America
- United States
- United States - Georgia
- Gender
- Health
- Inequality and Social Justice
- Race/Ethnicity
- Accessibility
- Autism
- Bioethics, Bioscience, Biotechnology
- Community engagement
- Emerging Technologies - Innovation
- Genetics
- Inequality, Inequity, and Social Justice
- Perspectives on technology
- Science and Technology
- Vulnerable Populations
Courses
- HTS-2694: HTS Internship - Paid
- HTS-2695: HTS Internship-Credit
- HTS-2698: Research Assistantship
- HTS-3082: Sociology of Science
- HTS-3086: Soc of Medicine & Health
- HTS-3088: Race Medicine & Science
- HTS-3823: Special Topics
- HTS-4086: Sem Health Med & Society
- HTS-4694: HTS Internship-Paid
- HTS-4695: HTS Internship-Credit
- HTS-4699: Undergraduate Research
- HTS-6123: Social & Cultural BIOMED
- HTS-7001: Sociohistorical Analysis
- HTS-8002: Perspectives-Tech&Sci
- LMC-8803: Special Topics
- SOC-1101: Intro to Sociology
Publications
Selected Publications
Books
- Multiple Autisms: Spectrums of Advocacy and Genomic Science
Date: 2016
Is there a gene for autism? Despite a billion-dollar, twenty-year effort to find out—and the more elusive the answer, the greater the search seems to become—no single autism gene has been identified. In Multiple Autisms, Jennifer S. Singh sets out to discover how autism emerged as a genetic disorder and how this affects those who study autism and those who live with it. This is the first sustained analysis of the practices, politics, and meaning of autism genetics from a scientific, cultural, and social perspective.
Journal Articles
- Intersectional analysis of autism service inequities: Narratives of Black single female caregivers
In: Social Science & Medicine: Qualitative Research in Health [Peer Reviewed]
Date: June 2023
Abstract
Despite the wide range of research on autism disparities in early identification, diagnosis, and access to services in racial and ethnic minorities in the United States compared to White children, few studies focus distinctly on the experiences of Black single female caregivers of children with autism. The dominant research and cultural narrative of White, married, and upper-middle-class families of a child with autism devalues the standpoint and experiences of caregivers whose social and economic position situates their differential experience of raising a child with a disability. Based on a narrative analysis of three Black single female caregivers who have a child diagnosed with autism and rely on Medicaid health insurance in the southern United States, this study offers an intersectional analysis of autism service inequities in diagnosis and services driving evident disparities based on race, gender, and social class. The analysis highlights intersecting ideological, political, and economic domains and associated institutions (i.e., education, employment, housing, and governing laws) that reflect and shape these narratives of autism service inequities. This study re-centers much-needed attention to the silent voices of Black single female caregivers made invisible in the structure of our society and offers a way forward by thinking critically about universal systems of care that can benefit all people.
All Publications
Books
- Multiple Autisms: Spectrums of Advocacy and Genomic Science
Date: 2016
Is there a gene for autism? Despite a billion-dollar, twenty-year effort to find out—and the more elusive the answer, the greater the search seems to become—no single autism gene has been identified. In Multiple Autisms, Jennifer S. Singh sets out to discover how autism emerged as a genetic disorder and how this affects those who study autism and those who live with it. This is the first sustained analysis of the practices, politics, and meaning of autism genetics from a scientific, cultural, and social perspective.
Journal Articles
- Intersectional analysis of autism service inequities: Narratives of Black single female caregivers
In: Social Science & Medicine: Qualitative Research in Health [Peer Reviewed]
Date: June 2023
Abstract
Despite the wide range of research on autism disparities in early identification, diagnosis, and access to services in racial and ethnic minorities in the United States compared to White children, few studies focus distinctly on the experiences of Black single female caregivers of children with autism. The dominant research and cultural narrative of White, married, and upper-middle-class families of a child with autism devalues the standpoint and experiences of caregivers whose social and economic position situates their differential experience of raising a child with a disability. Based on a narrative analysis of three Black single female caregivers who have a child diagnosed with autism and rely on Medicaid health insurance in the southern United States, this study offers an intersectional analysis of autism service inequities in diagnosis and services driving evident disparities based on race, gender, and social class. The analysis highlights intersecting ideological, political, and economic domains and associated institutions (i.e., education, employment, housing, and governing laws) that reflect and shape these narratives of autism service inequities. This study re-centers much-needed attention to the silent voices of Black single female caregivers made invisible in the structure of our society and offers a way forward by thinking critically about universal systems of care that can benefit all people.
- Underserved and undermeasured: a mixed method analysis of family-centered care and care coordination for low-income minority families of children with autism spectrum disorder
In: The Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities [Peer Reviewed]
Date: July 2021
- Autism Disparities: A Systematic Review and Meta-Ethnography of Qualitative Research
In: Qualitative Health Research [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2019
Racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are evident across many
service domains including access to early assessment, diagnosis, and therapeutic interventions. To better understand
the complex social and structural factors contributing to these disparities, this article offers a systematic review
of peer-reviewed qualitative research conducted from 2010 to 2016 in the United States that investigates autism
disparities experienced by marginalized communities. Based on these criteria, we identified 24 qualitative research
studies and conducted an analysis using meta-ethnography and an intersectional interpretive lens. We identified three
interdependent themes contributing to autism disparities, including familial, cultural, and structural barriers. Omissions
in the literature were also evident, including a lack of research on underserved adults with ASD and the gendered
inequities of caregiving. We discuss the implications of our findings and offer new questions that take an intersectional
approach using qualitative research to investigate autism disparities.
- Contextualizing the Social and Structural Constraints of Accessing Autism Services among Single Black Female Caregivers in Atlanta, Georgia
In: International Journal of Child Health and Human Development [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2019
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects 1 in 59 children and represent the fastest growing developmental disorder in the United States. However, disparities in ASD evaluation, diagnosis, and services exist based on social factors such as race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. To date, limited qualitative research has been conducted that focuses on the experiences of single black female caregivers of children with ASD who live in low-income, minority, and underserved communities in the United States. Objective: This study aimed to understand interrelated social and structural factors that place children and their families with limited resources at risk of delayed ASD diagnostic services and limited therapeutic services. Methods: The study design is based on in-depth interviews conducted with single black female caregivers of children with ASD who rely on state Medicaid health insurance in metro Atlanta, Georgia (N = 21). A grounded theory analysis of the interviews was used to systematically identify themes and multi-level barriers to ASD services. Results: Despite improvements over the past several decades in diagnosing children with ASD, this study identified multiple and interacting social, economic, and residential barriers to accessing ASD services. Two themes were identified that contextualize barriers to ASD services: bureaucratic processes and geographic location of services. These barriers were compounded by the consequences of being a single female parent, including having limited income, employment options, and social capital. Practical recommendations to break the cycle of ASD service disparities are discussed.
- Contours and Constraints of an Autism Genetic Database: Scientific, Social, and Digital Species of Biovalue
In: Tecnoscienza [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2018
- Parenting Work and Autism Trajectories of Care
In: Sociology of Health and Illness [Peer Reviewed]
Date: September 2016
This study investigates the work and care associated with raising a child with disabilities in the United States. Based on in-depth interviews with parents who have a child with autism, it develops the notion of parenting work and trajectories of care to investigate how parents navigate and coordinate the challenges of getting an autism diagnosis, obtaining educational services, and re-contextualizing the possibilities for the future. I argue that parents embody a complex mix of love, hope, and responsibility in parenting work and trajectories of care that expands temporal and social elements of illness work and illness trajectories initially developed by Anselm Strauss and colleagues. This type of parenting work changes over time and is influenced by social structural forces and relationships in which the care takes place. The re-articulation of these analytic tools also begins to untangle the intricate mix of both medical and social models of disability that parents embrace and continuously negotiate. This study demonstrates how parents accept the medical model of disability by seeking and pushing for a clinical autism diagnosis and subsequent treatments, while at the same time challenge the limits placed on their children by providing them opportunities, possible futures, and a sense of personhood.
- Narratives of Participation in Autism Genetics Research
In: Science, Technology & Human Values [Peer Reviewed]
Date: March 2015
This article provides empirical evidence of the social context and moral reasoning embedded within a parents’ decision to participate in autism genetics research. Based on in-depth interviews of parents who donated their family’s blood and medical information to an autism genetic database, three narratives of participation are analyzed, including the altruistic parent, the obligated parent, and the diagnostic parent. Although parents in this study were not generally concerned with bioethical principles such as autonomy and the issues of informed consent and/or privacy and confidentiality of genetic information, a critical analysis reveals contextual bioethics embedded within these different narratives. These include the negotiations of responsibility that parents confront in biomedical research, the misguided hope and expectations parents place in genomic science, and the structural barriers of obtaining an autism diagnosis and educational services. Based on these findings, this article demonstrates the limits of a principle-based approach to bioethics and the emergent forms of biological citizenship that takes into account the social situations of people’s lives and the moral reasoning they negotiate when participating in autism genetic research.
- The Vanishing Diagnosis of Asperger's Disorder
In: Sociology of Diagnosis [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2011
Purpose – This chapter discusses the proposed changes in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), which eliminates Asperger's disorder (AD) and replaces it as “autism spectrum disorder.” Implications of these changes on the identity of adults with AD and the influence of everyday life experiences will be addressed.
Methodology/approach – This research is based on 19 interviews with adults diagnosed or self-diagnosed with AD. Central themes surrounding issues of identity and everyday life experiences were determined using grounded theory approaches.
Findings – This study demonstrates how the diagnosis and self-diagnosis of AD is fused with individual identity. It also shows how Asperger identity is positively embraced. The proposed changes to eliminate AD in DSM-V threaten these assertions of Asperger identity, which could potentially enhance stigma experienced by people with AD. Regardless of its removal, Asperger identity must be considered within the broader context of people's everyday lives and how experiences in social interaction and communication can be strong agents of identity construction.
Social implications – The proposed changes to eliminate AD in DSM-V is a social issue that will impact individuals with Asperger's and their families, as well as health-care professionals, health insurers, researchers, state agencies, and educational providers.
Originality/value of paper – This chapter offers a unique insight into identity construction based on the diagnosis and self-diagnosis of AD.
Reports
- Addressing Atlanta's Health Disparities through Community Service Approaches
In: Saporta Report
Date: 2020
Other Publications
- Autism Services Disparities Map
Date: April 2020
Mapping Autism Services in Georgia
The map was conceived and designed to help people in Georgia navigate and coordinate autism services. Additionally, it provides an educational tool for those learning about the relationship between structural inequities and location of autism services across the state of Georgia.