Michael Esposito

Assistant Professor of Sociology
PhD, University of Washington
research interests:
  • Population Health
  • Race and Ethnicity
  • Statistical Methodology
  • Social/Spatial Contexts
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    contact info:

    office hours:

    • Thursdays 2:30 - 4:30 p.m.

    mailing address:

    • Washington University
    • MSC 1112-228-04
    • One Brookings Drive
    • St. Louis, MO 63130-4899
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    Professor Esposito's research focuses on understanding the production of racialized disparities in population health.

    Dr. Esposito investigates how broad, racialized social systems - and their constituent institutions - are configured in ways that layer privileges on white populations and hazards on BIPOC populations. His research ultimately seeks to understand how these systematically-distributed privileges and penalties arrive on population health. 

    This work includes studies that examine how the actions of race-cognizant institutions (e.g., law enforcement agencies) contribute to health disparities; research that considers how multiple racialized systems overlap to gate access to generative health contexts; and, projects which demonstrate how structural racism enters and distorts social processes that are foundational to well-being (e.g., the association among education and health). 

    Dr. Esposito uses contemporary statistical methods - Bayesian and counterfactual-based mediation approaches at the moment - across his work.  Esposito's research has appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; American Journal of Sociology; American Journal of Public Health and more.