Sociology Seminar Series: Courtney Boen (Brown University)

State Violence & Population Health: Three-Strikes Laws & Racialized Patterns of Birth Outcomes in the US While state incarceration policies have received much attention in research on the causes of mass incarceration in the U.S., their roles in shaping population health and health disparities remain largely unknown. In this talk, I will share recent work showing how one signature “tough on crime” policy from the 1990s—three strikes—shaped birth weight outcomes in the U.S. Merging data on state incarceration policies to vital statistics birth records from 1984-2004, we use a difference-in-differences event study research design to reveal that birth weight outcomes—including mean birth weight and low birth weight—for Black infants worsened markedly in the year three strikes policies were adopted. We provide suggestive evidence that three strikes policies adversely impacted Black birth outcomes through affective mechanisms, by inducing highly racialized, stigmatizing, and criminalizing public discourse around the time of policy adoption. Altogether, these findings point to the need to further interrogate state criminal legal system policies for their impacts on population health, considering whether, how, and for whom these policies result in health impacts. Courtney Boen is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate in the Population Studies and Training Center at Brown University. Before coming to Brown, she was an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Axilrod Faculty Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Boen's work aims to uncover the social and political forces generating population patterns of health and mortality. Her research combines critical and relational theories of inequality, insights from the life course perspective, and a variety of social demographic techniques to: 1) provide detailed and accurate estimates of population health and longevity patterns; and 2) interrogate and reveal the structural, institutional, and sociopolitical determinants of health inequities. Dr. Boen’s research has been published in a number of journals, including Social Forces, Demography, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Social Science and Medicine, The Journals of Gerontology, Biodemography and Social Biology, Demographic Research, the Journal of Aging and Health, and Health Affairs, among others. She has also written and contributed to articles and editorial pieces in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Hill, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Vox, among other outlets. Her work has received funding support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

When 12:00 pm - 1:15 pm on 24 September 2025
Building 96 Cummington Mall, Room 241