People
Narayan Sastry

Research Professor, Population Studies Center and Research Professor, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research
Research Interests:
Narayan Sastry is a Research Professor in the Survey Research Center and the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. He is also an Adjunct Senior Social Scientist at the RAND Corporation. Sastry has been at the University of Michigan since 2006.
Sastry was previously a Senior Social Scientist at RAND and Associate Director of RAND’s Labor and Population Program and Population Research Center.
Sastry’s research interests center on studying the social and spatial dimensions of health, development, and well-being of children and adolescents, both in the United States and in less developed countries.
Sastry serves as an Associate Director of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), and he directs the PSID Child Development Supplement (PSID-CDS) and the PSID Transition into Adulthood Supplement (PSID-TAS). He is the Co-Director of the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A.FANS). Sastry is also the Director of the Displaced New Orleans Residents Survey (DNORS) that was designed to study the long-term demographic effects of Hurricane Katrina on the pre-storm population of New Orleans.
Sastry received his Ph.D. in Demography and Public Affairs from Princeton University in 1995.
Select Publications
- Huang, Cher X., Halfon, Neal, Narayan Sastry, Chung, Paul J., Schickedanz, Adam. 2023. Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Health Outcomes. Pediatrics 152(1):e2022060951.
- Robert Bozick, Narayan Sastry, Airan Liu. 2022. Health in Early Adolescence and Paid Employment. Youth & Society 54(3):347-371.
- McGonagle,Katherine A, Narayan Sastry, Freedman,Vicki A. 2022. The Effects of a Targeted “Early Bird” Incentive Strategy on Response Rates, Fieldwork Effort, and Costs in a National Panel Study. Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology
- Lauren A. Tighe, Birditt,Kira S, Turkelson,Angela Elizabeth, Narayan Sastry. 2022. Under my skin: Parenting behavior and children’s cortisol in the Los Angeles family and neighborhood survey. Developmental Psychobiology 64(4):e22263-undefined.
- Narayan Sastry, McGonagle,Katherine A. 2022. Switching from telephone to web-first mixed-mode data collection: Results from the Transition into Adulthood Supplement to the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society) 185(3):933-954.
- McGonagle,Katherine A, Narayan Sastry. 2021. An Experimental Evaluation of an Online Interview Scheduler: Effects on Fieldwork Outcomes. Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology 9(3):412-428.
- Narayan Sastry, Fomby,Paula, McGonagle,Katherine A. 2021. Effects on Core Panel Attrition and Fieldwork Outcomes from Selection for a Supplemental Study: Evidence from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Advances in Longitudinal Survey Methodology :74-99.
- Narayan Sastry, Axinn,William G, de Jong,Julie Ann Josefosky, Ghimire,Dirgha Jibi, Emily Treleaven. 2021. Assessing the Opportunities and Challenges in the Transition to Computer-Based Survey Data Collection: The Role of Key Software System Features. Report to the World Bank
- Lei, Yvonne, Shah, Vivek, Biely, Christopher, Jackson, Nicholas, Dudovitz, Rebecca, Barnert, Elizabeth, Hotez, Emily, Guerrero, Alma, Bui, Anthony L., Narayan Sastry, Schickedanz, Adam. 2021. Discrimination and Subsequent Mental Health, Substance Use, and Well-being in Young Adults. Pediatrics 148(6)
- Schickedanz, Adam, José J. Escarce, Halfon, Neal, Narayan Sastry, Chung, Paul J.. 2021. Intergenerational Associations between Parents’ and Children’s Adverse Childhood Experience Scores. Children 8(9):747.