In 1982, she joined the faculty at USC, being promoted to full professor in 1992 and being named director of the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health in 1999.
[3] Crimmins was one of the initial researchers to combine indicators of disability, disease and mortality to examine trends and differentials in healthy life expectancy.
This work has also clarified the complexity in change in health, e.g. how there can be an increase in the prevalence of major diseases at the same time as there is decreasing disability.
Their work provided the models used in further research (see, for instance, Shireen J. Jejeebhoy, "Women's Status and Fertility," Studies in Family Planning, 22.4 (Jul 1991), pp. 217–230).
[12] Work on race and education differences in life expectancy has emphasized a life cycle approach to health differentials; the earlier “aging” of the disadvantaged occurs through the earlier onset of health conditions among persons of lower SES leading to shorter lives and fewer healthy years.