About

James Holland Jones is a Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and, by courtesy, of Earth System Science at Stanford University. He is part of the Department of Environmental Social Sciences within the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. His academic background is in biological and evolutionary anthropology, which he has pivoted from to focus more on human population health. His research broadly centers on human adaptability, including understanding the evolutionary and ecological contexts of human subsistence and reproductive decision-making, adaptation to changing social and biophysical environments, and the measurement and modeling of social and behavioral heterogeneity consequences. A significant portion of his research addresses the transmission and control of infectious diseases, emphasizing the role of social and behavioral heterogeneity and coupled cultural-evolutionary dynamics in shaping epidemic outcomes. He employs anthropological, mixed-method approaches to collect social, behavioral, and ecological data and utilizes tools such as formal demography, transmission-dynamics models, agent-based models, cultural-evolutionary models, social network analysis, and advanced statistics. Recent work in infectious-disease dynamics has focused on how the uncertainty characteristic of emerging infections influences decision-making during early epidemic phases. His research extends to developing novel machine learning tools to understand how social heterogeneity can create rugged adaptive landscapes for pathogens, potentially driving virulence evolution.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Psychology
• Ecology
• Geography
• Environmental science
• Economics
• Business
• Social psychology
• Microeconomics
• Medicine
• Archaeology
• Environmental resource management
• Risk analysis (engineering)
• Environmental health
• Environmental planning
• Biology

Selected publications

• The effects of furosemide on pulmonary transmural pressure and exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage in supramaximally exercising thoroughbred racehorses

  Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine · 2026-01-01

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Maximal intensity exercise in equine athletes induces pulmonary capillary stress failure and exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH) secondary to excessive transmural pressure (Ptm). Furosemide decreases EIPH severity and pulmonary arterial (PAP) and pulmonary wedge (PAW) pressures. HYPOTHESIS/OBJECTIVES: Assess the effects of furosemide on Ptm and EIPH during supramaximal exercise. ANIMALS: Six fit retired Thoroughbreds with consistent EIPH Grade ≥ 2. METHODS: Horses performed a controlled crossover design protocol, completing standardized treadmill tests (120%V̇O2max) before and 4 h after intravenous (IV) furosemide injection (0.5 mg/kg). Vascular catheters measured PAP and PAW. An esophageal catheter measured intrapleural pressure (Ppl). Pulmonary capillary pressure (Pcap) was estimated (Pcap = [PAP + PAW]/2) to calculate mean and peak Ptm (Ptm = Pcap-Ppl). The percentage of time that Ptm exceeded a stress failure threshold of 75 mm Hg was calculated. Blood and plasma volumes (BV, PV) were measured. Tracheoendoscopic EIPH score and the difference between pre- and post-exercise bronchoalveolar lavage red blood cell count (ΔBALRBC) were determined 1 h post-exercise. Treatment-related differences were compared using a paired t-test (P < .05). RESULTS: Furosemide decreased mean PAP (P = .03), PAW (P = .04), and Pcap (P = .03), but did not affect Ppl. The outcome was decreased maximum (P < .01) and minimum Ptm (P = .04). Transmural pressure exceeded 75 mm Hg for 57% ± 8% of the time in the control run and 31% ± 13% after furosemide, reflecting an approximately 45% decrease (P < .01). Furosemide (4 h post-treatment) did not affect BV or PV, but significantly lowered EIPH score (P = .03) and ΔBALRBC (P = .03). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: Furosemide decreased EIPH severity and Ptm. However, Ptm remained above the pulmonary capillary stress failure threshold, and some EIPH was observed.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Wages and Distribution

  Social Economics · 2025-10-13

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Counteradaptation in Vulnerable Socio-ecological Systems in Sierra Leone

  2025-10-15 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Sierra Leone is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change yet least resourced toconfront its impacts. Mainstream climate governance often casts adaptation as a technicaladjustment to biophysical hazards, but such framings risk naturalizing inequality by obscuringthe longue-durée histories of extraction and dispossession that have structured vulnerability.Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic research in coastal, agrarian, and urban communities inSierra Leone, this paper introduces the concept of counteradaptation to illustrate how peoplenavigate not only environmental volatility but also the antagonistic pressures generated by(neo)colonial systems. Counteradaptation highlights how adaptive moves in one domain—whether foreign extraction, ‘development’ apparatuses, or climate policy regimes—create newpressures that compel situated responses elsewhere. Case studies of fishing communities, timberand gold frontiers, and informal urban settlements show how counteradaptation reframeshabitability as a contested threshold and exposes the limits of technocratic adaptation toolkits. Bysituating climate response within histories of coloniality and predatory accumulation,counteradaptation offers a novel analytic for understanding ‘environmental’ behavior.

  PublisherDOI

• Social influencers reduce infection burden and modify epidemic lag in group-structured populations

  2025-12-16

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The impact of social media influence on social learning, health behaviour, and population health is a new, rapidly developing area of study. Previous research focused specifically on digital influencers suggests they may be able to affect group-level diffusion of health-protective behaviours such that they modify epidemic outcomes. However, formal models have yet to test the intuitive hypothesis that the effect of digital social influencers is sufficient to generate tangible, real-world effects on epidemics. We develop an agent-based model that incorporates digital influencers into an epidemic scenario to test hypotheses about how competing influence messages affect the diffusion of health-protective behaviours throughout a population, and thereby alter the course and outcome of infectious disease epidemics. We find digital influencers had a persistent, independent effect on peak infection intensity and total infection burden of the epidemic, with the greatest effects in highly homophilous scenarios. The presence of health-protective influence effectively flattened the epidemic curve despite equal presence of anti-protective influence.

  PublisherDOI

• Intravenous dexmedetomidine use in obstetric anesthesia: a focused review

  International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia · 2025-02-14 · 13 citations

  review
  PublisherDOI

• Monetary transfers are related to patterning in climate events, not just single extreme events

  2025-07-25

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  It is well-documented that households respond to climate events with climate adaptations, risk-management strategies like livelihood diversification, migration, or remittances – sending money and goods across distances. However, the focus is largely on responses to single climate events, while suggestive evidence indicates that temporal and spatial patterns across multiple events – including event frequency, clustering, and spatial extent – may predict which climate adaptations households use. Here, we assess whether households that have experienced not just more severe droughts, but more frequent, temporally autocorrelated, or spatially extensive droughts across recent years, are more likely to have received a remittance over the last 12 months. We analyze remittance data from 2009 from 11,776 households across six sub-Saharan African countries, matching it to satellite and weather station data on precipitation and evapotranspiration (1981-2009). We find that in the majority of countries, average severity of drought over a five-year window is associated with receiving a remittance; these effects are largely driven by remittances from household migrants, especially those who moved more than five years ago. Spatial extent is associated with receiving remittances in Nigeria but is slightly or significantly negative in other countries, while results for frequency vary by country. In short, patterning may predict what adaptations households will use in the face of climate events like drought, with strategies potentially varying by country. We suggest that researchers should investigate not just single events, but patterning across events. Doing so could help us better anticipate and support adaptations like remittances given future climate projections.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Extrinsic mortality is not the same as diminishing marginal returns on mortality reduction

  Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 2025-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The force of selection on survival changes with age and models of reproductive effort (RE) reflect this finding that increases in infant and adult mortality have different effects on optimal effort. Using an age-structured demographic model, I show that infant mortality constrains selection on the human life cycle. Effort directed at increasing infant survival is strongly favored over efforts to increase adult survival. Complete accounts of human reproductive decisions require age-specificity of effects.

  PublisherDOI

• Redefine statistical significance

  Artefactual Field Experiments · 2025-01-10 · 21 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Social influencers reduce infection burden and modify epidemic lag in group-structured populations

  2025-08-21

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  The impact of social media influence on social learning, health behaviour, and population health is a new, rapidly developing field of research. Previous research focused specifically on online social influencers suggests they may be able to affect group-level diffusion of health-protective behaviours such that they modify epidemic outcomes. The impacts of social influence on behaviour and epidemics depend on whether the disease has a low enough basic reproduction number ($R_0$) that social dynamics have time to diffuse. However, formal models have yet to test the intuitive hypothesis that online social influence is sufficient to generate tangible, real-world effects on epidemics. We develop an agent-based model that incorporates social influencers into an epidemic scenario to test hypotheses about how the presence of competing influence messages affects the diffusion of health-protective behaviours throughout a population, and thereby alters the course and outcome of infectious disease epidemics. We find social influencers had a persistent, independent effect on peak infection intensity and total infection burden of the epidemic, with the greatest effects in highly homophilous scenarios. The presence of health-protective influence effectively flattened the epidemic curve despite equal presence of anti-protective influence.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Quality Improvement Projects and Anesthesiology Graduate Medical Education: A Systematic Review

  Cureus · 2024-04-09 · 1 citations

  reviewOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Quality improvement (QI) projects are essential components of graduate medical education and healthcare organizations to improve patient outcomes. We systematically reviewed the literature on QI projects in anesthesiology graduate medical education programs to assess whether these projects are leading to publications. A literature search was conducted in July 2023, using PubMed, Embase, and the Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) for articles describing QI initiatives originating within the United States and applicable to anesthesiology residency training programs. The following data were collected: intervention(s), sample size (number of participants or events), outcome metric(s), result(s), and conclusion(s). One hundred and fifty publications were identified, and 31 articles met the inclusion criteria. A total of 2,259 residents and 72,889 events were included in this review. Educational modalities, such as simulation, training sessions, or online curricula, were the most prevalent interventions in the included studies. Pre-intervention and post-intervention assessments were the most common outcome metrics reported. Our review of the literature demonstrates that few QI projects performed within anesthesiology training programs lead to published manuscripts. Further research should aim at increasing the impact of required QI projects within the sponsoring institution and specialty.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Life History Perspectives on Violent Conflict

  NSF · $14k · 2008–2009

• NIH Grant K01HD051494

  NIH · $658k · 2011

• RAPID: Coupled Contagion, Behavior-Change, and the Dynamics of Pro- and Anti-Social Behavior During the COVID-19 Pandemic

  NSF · $233k · 2020–2023

• RAPID: Structure of Contact Networks and the Spread of Flu-like Infectious Diseases: Implications for Dynamics and Control

  NSF · $103k · 2009–2011

• Individual Decisions and Emergent Aggregate Patterns: Kin Co-residence among Hadza Hunter-Gatherers

  NSF · $250k · 2011–2014

Frequent coauthors

• Hajime Ohmura

  Japan Racing Association

  56 shared

• Philip H. Kass

  University of California, Davis

  30 shared

• Eugene T. Richardson

  Harvard Global Health Institute

  28 shared

• Atsushi Hiraga

  Teikyo University of Science

  28 shared

• Shachar Malka

  Island Hospital

  28 shared

• Michelle G. Hawkins

  27 shared

• Peter J. Pascoe

  27 shared

• A. Solano

  Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública

  26 shared

Labs

• Human Evolutionary Ecology and HealthPI

  Research focus not provided in the HTML snippet.

Education

• Ph.D., Anthropology

  Harvard University

  2000