Population Research Discovery Seminars
Death by Design: Producing Racial Health Inequality in the Shadow of the Capitol
Sanyu A. Mojola, Professor of Sociology & Public Affairs, Princeton University
Parrington Hall Room 360
To Join By Zoom: Register HERE
Follow this link to sign up for a 1:1 meeting with Dr. Mojola during their visit on October 31st
10/31/2025
12:30-1:30 PM PT
360 Parrington Hall
Co-Sponsor(s):
Washington, DC, the capital of the United States, has the nation’s largest racial life expectancy gap, and it has experienced many of the nation’s worst epidemics, including maternal and infant mortality, homicide, heroin overdoses, and HIV/AIDS. These epidemics have disproportionately affected African Americans. Why and how does racial health inequality exist and persist? Starting from the city’s founding in the late 1700s and drawing on a range of sources—including archival material, life history interviews, and census, vital statistics, and disease surveillance data—this book illustrates how the physical, social, and policy design of the city contributes to the production and reproduction of disproportionate Black death.
Sanyu A. Mojola is Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and the Maurice P. During Professor of Demographic Studies at Princeton University. She directed Princeton’s Office of Population Research between 2020 – 2024. Her mixed methods research examines how societies produce health and illness, with a particular focus on the HIV/AIDS pandemic as it unfolds in various settings such as Kenya, South Africa and the US. She has investigated how social dynamics within schools, communities, labor markets, cities and eco-systems can lead to health inequality. She is especially interested in how the life course, gender, race/ethnicity and socio-economic status shape health outcomes. In addition to her first book, Love, Money and HIV: Becoming a Modern African Woman in the Age of AIDS, and forthcoming book, Death by Design: Producing Racial Health Inequality in the Shadow of the Capitol, her work has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Population and Development Review, Demography, Social Science and Medicine and Journal of Marriage and Family, among other journals. She is currently working on a book on health, aging and social change in rural South Africa. https://scholar.princeton.edu/smojola