Core Department Faculty Member
- Julie Phillips
- Professor
- Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania, 1998
- Email:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. - Office: Davison Hall, 133
- Curriculum Vitae
- Google Scholar
Julie Phillips, Professor of Sociology, is a social demographer with broad interests in health and mortality, especially from lethal violence. Her recent work focuses on the sharp rise in U.S. suicide rates since 2000, using sociocultural and demographic approaches to understand how suicide risk varies across the life course, over time, and between birth cohorts. Her current research addresses the mental health crisis and rising rates of suicidal behavior among American adolescents and young adults, with particular attention to the role of substance misuse.
She writes for a variety of audiences, publishing in journals such as Demography, Social Science and Medicine, Health Affairs, and American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Her work has been supported by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the National Institute for Mental Health and the National Science Foundation, and featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, National Public Radio, and other national media outlets. She served as a member of the New Jersey Youth Suicide Prevention Advisory Council from 2011 to 2016, and she is currently an advisor for the Scientific Council for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Dr. Phillips teaches courses in population health, demography, research methods, and statistics.
- In the Public Eye:
- Penned an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled “The Dangerous Shifting Cultural Narratives around Suicide” Sunday, March 24, 2019.
- Research featured in the New York Times, “How Suicide Quietly Morphed into a Public Health Crisis”, June 8, 2018.
- Interviewed on NPR’s Hidden Brain about American Masculinity and Loneliness, March 19, 2018.
- Faculty Article(s):
- Beliefs about Suicide Acceptability in the United States: How do they Affect Suicide Mortality?
- Identifying latent themes in suicide among black and white adolescents and young adults using the National Violent Death Reporting System, 2013–2019
- Beliefs about Suicide Acceptability in the United States: How do they Affect Suicide Mortality?
- Program Areas:
- Crime and Social Control
- Health, Population, and Biomedicine