Daily Trojan profiled Catherine Pérez, a Ph.D. candidate studying gerontology at the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, who is researching health disparities with regard to different social determinants. “I started to see there are these really vast differences in health outcomes,” Pérez said. “I became very interested and concerned because if we’re not in our optimal health how are we supposed to do anything? If you’re sick you can’t work; if you’re sick you can’t help take care of other people; if you’re sick you can’t take time for yourself to develop or find your life purpose.”