Department of Sociology

Courtney Boen is an Assistant Professor of Sociology 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 race and racism, insights from the life course perspective, and a variety of social demographic techniques to: 1) provide detailed and accurate estimates of population health 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 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, Journal of Marriage and Family, Demographic Research, the Journal of Aging and Health, and Health Affairs, among others. Her work has received funding support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.