Fields

Aging and Families, Late-Life Parent-Child Relationships, Caregiving, Union Dissolution and Formation, Demography and Quantitative Methods, High Impact Teaching Practices

Courses

• Introduction to Sociology
• Social Problems
• Sociology of Healthcare
• Families in Society 
• Middle Age and Aging
• Death and Dying

CV

See Prof. Hammersmith's CV here.

Selected Publications

For a complete list of publications, view my Google Scholar page. 

Selected Peer Reviewed Journal Articles  

Zhang, Xing, Anna M. Hammersmith, Masumi Iida, & Frank Infurna. (2024). "Adult Childrens’ College Completion Timing and Their Aging Mothers’ Self-Rated Health: The Role of Mothers’ Educational Attainment." Journal of Adult Development. 

Lin, I-Fen & Anna M. Hammersmith. (2024). "Mother-Child Closeness and Adult Children’s Time and Financial Support." Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences.

Kurthen, Hermann & Anna M. Hammersmith. (2024). “Is Study Abroad Still a Privilege? Exploring Disparities at the Example of a Public Midwestern University in the U.S.” Frontiers International Journal of Study Abroad. 

Zhang, Xing & Anna M. Hammersmith. (2023). "Children’s Transitions to Adulthood and Aging Parents’ Depressive Symptoms and Activities of Daily Living Conditions in the United States." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(12), 6151.

Buday, Amanda, Brett Zollinger, Anna M. Hammersmith, & Kiley Heine. (2021). “Thirsting for sustainability: Perceived importance of municipal water conservation and participation in city-sponsored conservation initiatives.” Forthcoming in Great Plains Research, 31(1): 1-16.

Wright, Matthew R., Anna M. Hammersmith, Susan L. Brown, & I-Fen Lin. (2020). “The Role of Union Dissolution and Subsequent Repartnering on Loneliness in Later Life.” The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 75(8): 1796-1807.  

Frederick, Chad, Anna M. Hammersmith, & John I. Gilderbloom. (2019). “Putting ‘place’ in its place: Comparing place-based factors in interurban analyses of life expectancy in the United States.” Social Science & Medicine 232: 148-155.

Lin, I-Fen, Susan L. Brown, Matthew R. Wright, & Anna M. Hammersmith. (2019). “Depressive Symptoms Following Gray Divorce and Subsequent Repartnering.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 60(2): 153-168.

Brown, Susan L., I-Fen Lin, Anna M. Hammersmith, & Matthew R. Wright. (2019). “Repartnering Following Gray Divorce: The Roles of Resources and Constraints for Women and Men.” Demography 56(2): 503-523. 

Hammersmith, Anna M. (2019). “Life Interrupted: Parent Positivity and Negativity toward Children Following Transitions Later in Life.” The Gerontologist 59(3): 519-527.

Hammersmith, Anna M. & I-Fen Lin. (2019). “Evaluative and Experienced Well-being of Caregivers of Parents and Caregivers of Children.” The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 72(2): 339-352.

Biography

Professor Hammersmith’s areas of specialization are aging and families, parent’s relationships with their adult children, caregiving, as well as union dissolution and formation in later life. The impetus of her research is the aging of populations worldwide. In the United States, the graying of the Baby Boomer population has ushered in a host of new patterns of family behavior, such as high rates of late-life divorce and repartnering. Shifts in dissolution and repartnership may weaken parent-child ties, which may harm the health and well-being of older adults given longer life expectancy and greater potential caretaking needs. Dissolution, repartnering, and less cohesive parent-child ties likely leave older adults socially and economically vulnerable, yet few studies have examined the implications of these recent trends. Professor Hammersmith’s research addresses this gap by studying the precursors of late-life dissolution and repartnership, and their links to parent-child ties, in an effort to better inform policies to meet the current and future needs of older people.

Professor Hammersmith grew up north of Columbus, Ohio. She attended Denison University in Granville, Ohio where she earned a double major in Sociology/Anthropology and Spanish. In 2018, Professor Hammersmith graduated with a Ph.D. in Sociology and a minor in Quantitative Methods from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.