The PAA Call for Papers is out! I’m organizing (w Kristen Harknett) a Session on Families, Health, & Well-being. Send us your papers! #PAA2027 higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/POPULATIONAS...
higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com
Courtney Boen
@courtneyboen.bsky.social
Sociologist & demographer at Brown University. I study the political & structural drivers of population health.
Over 600,000 people have been booked into ICE detention since Trump took office in January 2025. That is the cumulative total who have passed through the gates, far more than the roughly 65,000 held on a single day. I pulled it from ICE's own biweekly data.
1/When #attrition looks like this in an endline survey in an RCT: Baseline disadvantage reduces endline participation, but only in control (here higher values of Kessler 6 = worse) Why? It seems like successful interventions can change who remains observable!
Are you a sociologist studying social inequality? Come join our awesome sociology department at @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social as an assistant professor www.uu.nl/en/organisat...
Assistant Professor in Social Inequality
Are you an expert in the sociology of social inequality or social stratification? Do you want to inspire students? Become our new assistant professor!
uu.nl
We're hiring! Open area search for assistant professor of sociology at UC Berkeley. Come be our colleague! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05416
Assistant Professor - Open Field - Sociology
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
"in-hospital mortality increases for Black, but not White, patients as hospitals reach capacity... We identify rationing by wait times as a mechanism, documenting that sicker Black patients wait longer for care than healthier White patients at almost all capacity levels"
AEA Journals@aeajournals.bsky.social · last mo.Forthcoming in the AER: "Rationing by Race" by Manasvini Singh and Atheendar Venkataramani.
What are the economic consequences of the Trump administration’s deployment of DHS agencies such as ICE? @aaronsojourner.org, @chloeneast.bsky.social, and @ericawilli.bsky.social assess the numbers at an upcoming @epi.org webinar.
The Cost of DHS Attacks on Immigrants
The Trump administration's deployment of DHS agencies—such as ICE—has caused irreparable harm to our communities, neighbors, and families across the country. The economic costs are also…
buff.ly
White Americans who were eligible for the GI Bill, or had fathers who were, benefitted massively, while the equivalent Black Am benefitted much less on average bc they were funneled into using it on vocational schools (or scam “schools”) Paper estimates that accounts for *5 pp* in sons’ college gap
Blindly Discriminating: The GI Bill and Racial Inequality
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
nber.org
This study of four cohorts of French schoolchildren shows that the gender gap in math (girls falling behind) begins essentially immediately as soon as kids start school. They use the natural variation in kids' ages at school start to show that it's school entry, not age, that triggers the change.
Rapid emergence of a maths gender gap in first grade - Nature
Boys and girls exhibit very similar maths scores upon school entry, but a gender gap in favour of boys becomes highly significant after 4 months of schooling, which increases with years of schooling,&...
nature.com
A proposed OMB rule would shift federal science funding decisions away from independent expert review and toward political appointees, while restricting how research is communicated. The public can submit comments on the proposal through July 13 (Docket OMB-2026-0034) at Regulations.gov.
Regulations.gov
regulations.gov
Today I'm publicly releasing a paper that answers that question (download link in the comments) using data on 5.4 million local businesses across the US: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... During the first year of the current administration, ICE raids caused serious economic damage in seven ways:
*** NEW RESEARCH *** Images of ICE targeting US cities have been commonplace in since January 2025. What's the economic effect of this new immigration enforcement regime on businesses, both workplaces and retailers, in targeted areas? Thread... 🧵
Submissions open ✍️ Special Issue: Challenges in Addressing Maternal & Infant Health Disparities. Policy, methods & equity perspectives encouraged. Deadline: 5/31/2027. CFP: buff.ly/BNkfGnD #MaternalHealth #HealthEquity #PublicHealth #CFP
Breaking news: Indiana University plant microbiologist Roger Innes has been locked out of his laboratory by the school in response to a request by one of his federal funders. The move comes after Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs. https://scim.ag/4tsDqRr
After USDA request, Indiana plant biologist locked out of lab by school
Move comes after Roger Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs
scim.ag
What a pill to swallow after presenting in the “Public Policy & Population Health” session yesterday at #paa2026. One of the biggest challenges of doing work in this area has always been that institutions rarely provide researchers with evidence of their harms. Now they won’t fund it, either.
Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield.bsky.social · 3mo ago…For those who weren’t there, something I didn’t post about (because we pivoted from policy to pop centers and I wanted to listen closely) was Bhattacharya’s absolutely astonishing claim that research evaluating the health effects of public policy is out of scope for NIH-funded research.
…For those who weren’t there, something I didn’t post about (because we pivoted from policy to pop centers and I wanted to listen closely) was Bhattacharya’s absolutely astonishing claim that research evaluating the health effects of public policy is out of scope for NIH-funded research.
He said repeatedly that NIH-funded grants should seek to influence clinical decisions by providers or patients, and nothing else. An incredible stance from a health economist who spent time in the population health world, and an absolute repudiation of the hopes that he is reachable on that basis.
📢CALL FOR PAPERS #QueteletSeminar 2026: historical, comparative, spatial analyses, advanced methodologies, interdisciplinarity, conceptual frameworks, policy responses... on inequalities in & through #health across past, present, & future societies. ⏬More details
A new UC Berkeley analysis found ICE arrests of people with no criminal record surged 770% in Trump's first year back. Street arrests (in neighborhoods, at courthouses, at check-ins) jumped over 1,000%. Here's what it means. 🧵
What a devastating article about Linda McMahon and the Department of Education in @newyorker.com by Zach Helfand. I confess that I could not continue reading it last night after finishing this paragraph, especially the "I hope zero" quote from the Moms for Liberty founder.
New USDA data released today: H.R. 1 enacted the deepest SNAP cuts in history last July. By January, more than 3 million fewer people were receiving food assistance. Nationwide, SNAP caseloads fell by more than 8% in just 6 months — despite no improvement in economic conditions.
April Courtney, who is always scrambling to finish her PAA papers, has a lot of disdain for September Courtney, who always submits abstracts to PAA to “move projects along.” The two of them really need to get it together.
ICE averaged 1,286 deportations per day through April 4. The first half of FY2026: 234,236 removals, 74% more than the same period in either of the two prior fiscal years.
ICE published new detention data after a 56-day gap, the longest reporting blackout since Trump took office. Here's what the numbers show. A thread with charts. 🧵
We are hiring a tenure track (!) senior researcher in political economy! This is obviously a great job (permanent without teaching obligation) and I hope you all apply. However, I would like to take a moment to share just how significant this is in the German academic context ⬇️
Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung (MPIfG)@mpifg.bsky.social · 4mo ago📢 Call: Tenure Track Position The MPIfG Political Economy Research Area led by Lucio Baccaro is seeking a Senior Researcher. Open to candidates with at least two years’ postdoc experience. Please share widely! 🗓️ Apply by April 20, 2026 s.gwdg.de/WPMPp1
In 2024, Massachusetts saw a surge in doctors providing telehealth abortions to out-of-state residents. The spike came after implementation of a shield law protecting abortion providers from out-of-state criminal or civil investigations. Story via @gbhnews.bsky.social: www.wgbh.org/news/health/...
Here is a graph with dollar amounts of funding committed. The curves look very similar to those based on the number of awards.
"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux@bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 5mo agoIs there a version of the chart follow the dollar-value of the grants? Is it fewer-bigger grants or simply - as I would guess - straight up less money going out the door?
The saddest piece I've ever read about the Trump administration's deliberate destruction of US health research The gutting of NIH has been as bad as the gutting of CDC "In 2024, NIH published 756 funding announcements In 2025, it published 120 In 2026, as of March 15, it has published 14" 1/n
Jennifer N. Victor@jenvictor.bsky.social · 5mo agoThis is an incredible documentation of the systematic, intentional collapse of American health science, by Elizabeth Ginexi. open.substack.com/pub/elizabet...