Scientific Presentations

LabTalks@­SocialDemography

Department Social Demography
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), Rostock, Germany, February 25, 2025

1:00 PM: Talk with Megan Evans - Arrests and the Opioid Epidemic: An Investigation into the Spatial and Social Network Spillover of Opioid Overdoses in Chicago

Abstract

This study investigates the role of criminal justice intervention practices, i.e., opioid arrests, in effectively preventing opioid overdoses, paying particular attention to whether arrests in spatially proximate or socially connected communities lead to the displacement or prevention of opioid overdoses in a local community. Combining data from the Cook County medical examiner, emergency medical services information, and arrest reports with commuting network statistics for Chicago’s 77 community areas between 2016 and 2019, this study uses fixed effects spatial autoregressive models with spatial lags to predict community-level opioid overdose rates. We find evidence for the diffusion and displacement of overdose risk as well as the diffusion of overdose-reducing benefits. Findings suggest complex spatial and social spillover mechanisms that both diffuse and prevent opioid overdoses, dependent on the type of opioid-related crime and overdose rate investigated. These results have important implications for understanding the effectiveness of criminal justice policies in preventing opioid-related crime and overdoses.

1:45 PM: Talk with Emma Zai - The mental health consequences of spousal bereavement

Abstract

We examine the dynamic effects of the loss of a spouse on mental health. We use data from the SHARE study for 28 European countries over the period 2004-2022 and estimate event study regressions to examine how individuals’ mental health changes over the transition into widowhood. We find no evidence of changes in mental health before the death of a spouse due to anticipation or caregiving effects. Bereaved individuals experience up to 1.5 additional depressive symptoms and their risk of depression increases by around 20 percentage points, with similar effects for men and women. Individuals adapt relatively quickly and their risk of depression reverts to baseline levels within 3 years of the death. We provide suggestive evidence that this adaptation is in part due to increased rates of social participation.

LabTalk, February, 25th from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. (Rostock time)