Rural People and Places

Research exploring Family, Health, and Poverty Across Rural and Urban America

Matthew M. Brooks

Assistant Professor | Florida State

Rural Sociologist & Demographer

I am currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Florida State University, where I am also an affiliate of the Center for Demography and Population Health. I research a broad range of socioeconomic issues across the rural, urban, and suburban United States, primarily those that intersect with family, health, and poverty. My work has been published in multiple outlets including Demography, the American Journal of Public Health, and Rural Sociology.

I earned my PhD from the Pennsylvania State University in Rural Sociology & Demography, and I have previously held a position as a Postdoctoral Researcher at McGill University's Centre on Population Dynamics.

Select Publications

Brooks, Matthew M., and Shelley Clark. 2024. “Early Family Formation, Selective Migration, and Childhood Conditions in Rural America.” Rural Sociology. 89(2): 281-310. doi: 10.1111/ruso.12541

Clark, Shelley, Matthew M. Brooks, Ann-Marie Helou, and Rachel Margolis. 2024. “Are Rural Areas Holdouts in the Second Demographic Transition?: Evidence from the U.S. and Canada.” Demography. 61(2): 541-568. doi: 10.1215/00703370-11237867

Brooks, Matthew M. 2022. “The Changing Landscape of Affordable Housing in the Rural and Urban United States, 1990-2016”. Rural Sociology. 82(2): 511-546. doi: 10.1111/ruso.12427

Brooks, Matthew M., J. Tom Mueller, and Brian C. Thiede. 2021. “Rural-urban differences in the labor-force impacts of COVID-19 in the United States”. Socius 7: 1-12. doi: 10.1177/23780231211022094

Brooks, Matthew M., J. Tom Mueller, and Brian, C. Thiede. 2020 "County Reclassifications and Rural–Urban Mortality Disparities in the United States (1970–2018)." American Journal of Public Health, 110 (12): 1814-1816 doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2020.305895

Courses Taught

Cities in Society (Undergraduate)

Rural America Now! (Undergraduate)

Population Data (Graduate)

Population Mobilities (Graduate)

Google Sites

Report abuse