Additional Information
Biography
I study the social and structural processes that perpetuate health disparities across race, place, and gender. My research asks: how do structural inequalities—alongside the social contexts and experiences they generate—become biologically embedded across the life course. In my work, I primarily draw upon administrative, economic, legislative, longitudinal survey, and blood-based biomarker data. My recent and ongoing research explores how U.S. states’ sociopolitical contexts shape population health and aging, such as developing quantitative tools to investigate the proliferation of criminal legal system logics across society and studying this broader punitive apparatus as a structural determinant of health.
CDHA Research Area Affiliations
Places, Health, & Aging; Aging Trajectories & Disparities Across the Life Course; Biodemography; Demography of Dementia & Cognition
Selected Publications
Berg, Mark T., Kendall Riley, and Man Kit Lei. 2025. “The heart of the matter: neighborhood violent crime and deprivation, cardiometabolic disease, and the racial invariance thesis.” Journal of Crime and Justice. https://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2024.2394224
Berg,Mark T., Kendall Riley, Man Kit Lei, Ronald L. Simons. 2024. “Incarceration Exposure, Biological Aging, and Depression Symptoms in an African American Sample of Older Adults.” Journal of Health and Aging 0. https://doi.org/10.1177/08982643241257065