Anna Jaskiewicz

Biography

I am a PhD candidate in the Economics Department and a Graduate Associate at the Broom Center for Demography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. My current research centers on how exposure to local crime impacts health outcomes for marginalized communities.

Research

In my job market paper, I study if and how anti-Black hate crimes exacerbate Black-White disparities in health. I find that exposure to local anti-Black hate crimes negatively impacts health outcomes of Black (but not White) individuals and I detect these adverse effects at various stages of the life course, from infancy to adulthood. I have presented this work at major disciplinary conferences, including the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America and the Annual Conference of the American Society of Health Economists.

I have served as an Instructor of Record for five quarters and as a Head Teaching Assistant for seven quarters, managing teams of up to 17 Teaching Assistants and guiding cohorts of over 700 undergraduate students. My dedication to teaching has been acknowledged through my receipt of the Departmental Outstanding Undergraduate TA Award three times over the past five years.

Before attending UCSB, I received a BA in Economics (summa cum laude) from New York University in Shanghai.

Job Market Paper Abstract

"Anti-Black Hate Crimes & Health Outcomes of Black Americans"

In 2019, hate crimes reported in the United States rose to the highest level in a decade. High exposure to race-motivated violence may induce psychological stress among Black individuals, contributing to racial disparities in health. In this paper, I conduct two separate yet complementary studies that document the adverse effects of anti-Black hate crimes on the health outcomes of Black infants and adults. First, I leverage a rich data set consisting of all nationwide birth records from the National Center for Health Statistics to show that in utero exposure to local anti-Black aggravated assaults is associated with lower birth weights and shorter gestation lengths among Black infants. Second, using restricted-access Emergency Department Data from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information, I find an increase in the volume of chest pain-related Emergency Department visits among Black adults following an anti-Black aggravated assault in their area of residence. In contrast to these results, I report that the effects on White infants and adults are negligible in magnitude and largely insignificant. Taken together, this suggests that stress associated with exposure to local anti-Black hate crimes may be a contributor to the racial health disparities present in the United States.