Speaker Series

Abstract: The immediate, direct effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality are felt worldwide. Yet this is not the only mortality crisis the world has witnessed in recent decades. In the US, theopioid epidemic, increased automobile deaths and homicides, and, more generally, the midlifemortality crisis all contribute to the deteriorating average lifespan of Americans today. ... Read more

Abstract: Women and men across the globe are at high risk of underachieving their fertility goals. This means that they are aging out of their reproductive years having had fewer children than they desired to have, a phenomenon referred to as unrealized fertility. Although often considered a problem concentrated in low-fertility settings, recent research has revealed ... Read more

Bio: Kathleen Cagney, Ph.D., is Director of the Institute for Social Research and Professor of Sociology. Her work examines social inequality and its relationship to health with a focus on neighborhood, race, and aging and the life course. Her general aim is to bring insights from urban sociological theory and methods to research on health. ... Read more

Abstract: Universal public health insurance is being implemented across the globe putting substantial pressure on public finances. Whereas the impact of these programs on health care utilization has been well documented, there is limited evidence on the causal impacts on population health. This study contributes to filling this important gap by exploiting the roll-out of ... Read more

Abstract:  Economic inequality is an important issue in the world today, and the difficulty in reducing it has led many to presume it is an intrinsic property of human systems. Archaeologists have been increasingly vocal in countering this idea, pointing out cases in history where economic inequality has decreased or remained low over long periods. However, ... Read more

Abstract: Exposure to violence and trauma in Latin America significantly contributes to migration to the U.S., bringing attention to the mental health consequences of forced migration at the U.S./Mexico border. Traumatic events occur at every stage of migration and negatively impact mental health. Although studies such as Keller et. al. look at pre-migration experiences of ... Read more

Abstract: Medicaid data are used frequently to investigate racial and ethnic disparities in health. However, there is considerable variation in the completeness of race/ethnicity information in Medicaid data across the United States (U.S.). To address these gaps, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Enhancing Health Data (EHealth) Program assessed the feasibility, benefit, and effectiveness of linking Medicaid enrollment ... Read more