Elizabeth Wrigley-Field

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota and the Associate Director of the Minnesota Population Center. Her research focuses on racial inequality in mortality in the U.S., particularly through historical and contemporary lenses. She specializes in demographic methodology to analyze mortality disparities and has conducted extensive work on the societal impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, including co-founding an award-winning community vaccination initiative.

Wrigley-Field holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin (2014), an M.A. in Philosophy from New York University (2007), and a B.A. in Sociology from NYU (2006). Her work integrates sociological insights with quantitative methods to address structural inequities in health outcomes.

Her research interests include racial disparities in infectious disease mortality, demographic modeling of health inequities, and the historical roots of modern health disparities. She has explored topics such as the mortality consequences of the Freedman’s Savings Bank failure, firearm-related deaths among Black rural youth, and the long-term effects of systemic racism on lifespan.

Her recent publications emphasize the persistent racial gaps in mortality and the need for equitable public health responses to pandemics. She advocates for geographically targeted vaccination strategies and has highlighted the disproportionate risks faced by essential workers during the pandemic.

Wrigley-Field’s methodological contributions include refining metrics to clarify the human impact of mortality disparities and developing models to bridge micro- and macro-level analyses of population processes. She actively collaborates with community organizations to translate research into actionable public health policies.