Professor Bakhtiari’s research examines how institutionalized social inequalities shape patterns of health outcomes and health disparities, particularly for racial and ethnic minority groups and international migrants. He is broadly interested in how the variable construction and stratification of group boundaries in the context of reception can affect immigrants’ health outcomes and life chances after migration. Although his dissertation research focused on immigration to the United States, other publications have drawn on cross-national comparison and multi-level statistical analysis to ask why relative health inequalities are larger or smaller in some countries compared to others, and how the state, civil society, and other institutions shape patterns of health disparities across contexts. His work has appeared in American Behavioral Scientist, Social Science and Medicine, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Socius, and other outlets.