Elizabeth M. Lawrence

Dr. Elizabeth Lawrence examines the consequences of social inequality, focusing on educational differentials in health. Health disparities by educational attainment are large, growing, and crucial to the trends, causes, and consequences of social inequality. Despite the wealth of research establishing the strong associations between education and health, there is much we do not know about why these disparities exist and how we can reduce them. To better understand why more highly educated individuals are healthier, Dr. Lawrence’s research considers the social origins of both educational and health inequalities. She uses a life course perspective to understand how educational and health disparities develop over time and across developmental life stages. Her work has been published in sociology, education, health, and demographic journals such as Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Social Science & Medicine, Demography, and The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Dr. Lawrence joined the Department of Sociology at UNLV in January 2018 after obtaining her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2015 and completing a postdoctoral fellowship in the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.