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Author: Bacak, Valerio
Resulting in 4 citations.
1. Bacak, Valerio
Incarceration and Health in a Life Course Perspective: A Semiparametric Approach
Presented: Boston MA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, May 2014
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Health, Mental/Psychological; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Incarceration/Jail; Life Course

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

There is a growing consensus that incarceration may lead to adverse health outcomes, but there is little direct evidence about the reasons why. In most health related research, incarceration has been measured as a one-off event. Yet the experience of incarceration may have a different impact based on when it takes place for the first time, how long it lasts, and how often it occurs. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, I examine how timing, frequency, and duration modify the impact of incarceration on physical and mental health. With little guidance from theory or empirical research that would indicate the appropriate functional form of the relationship between these characteristics of incarceration and health, I use generalized additive models to derive the form inductively. The analysis is informed by the social stress literature and early prison sociology.
Bibliography Citation
Bacak, Valerio. "Incarceration and Health in a Life Course Perspective: A Semiparametric Approach." Presented: Boston MA, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, May 2014.
2. Bacak, Valerio
Kennedy, Edward H.
Marginal Structural Models: An Application to Incarceration and Marriage During Young Adulthood
Journal of Marriage and Family 77,1 (February 2015): 112-125.
Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12159/abstract
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing, Inc. => Wiley Online
Keyword(s): Criminal Justice System; Incarceration/Jail; Marriage; Modeling

Advanced methods for panel data analysis are commonly used in research on family life and relationships, but the fundamental issue of simultaneous time-dependent confounding and mediation has received little attention. In this article the authors introduce inverse-probability-weighted estimation of marginal structural models, an approach to causal analysis that (unlike conventional regression modeling) appropriately adjusts for confounding variables on the causal pathway linking the treatment with the outcome. They discuss the need for marginal structural models in social science research and describe their estimation in detail. Substantively, the authors contribute to the ongoing debate on the effects of incarceration on marriage by applying a marginal structural model approach to panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (N = 4,781). In line with the increasing evidence on the collateral consequences of contact with the criminal justice system, the authors find that incarceration is associated with reduced chances of entering marriage.
Bibliography Citation
Bacak, Valerio and Edward H. Kennedy. "Marginal Structural Models: An Application to Incarceration and Marriage During Young Adulthood." Journal of Marriage and Family 77,1 (February 2015): 112-125.
3. Bacak, Valerio
Spencer, Kailey
Incarceration and Educational Attainment: A Propensity Score Analysis
Presented: Washington, DC, Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) Annual Fall Research Conference, November 7-9, 2013
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM)
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; High School Completion/Graduates; Incarceration/Jail; Propensity Scores

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Incarceration in the United States has reached unprecedented proportions. While a number of studies have found evidence for independent effects of incarceration on indicators of well-being, such as mental health, some of these also precede criminal behavior and subsequent incarceration. Education is one such attribute that can be both a predictor and an outcome of incarceration. Yet vast majority of research has focused on education as a precursor to incarceration, with very little attention paid to the possibility of reverse effects. We know, for instance, that young men who have dropped out of high school are at a dramatically high risk of becoming incarcerated but we know comparatively little about the role that incarceration plays in decreasing or increasing educational attainment. In this paper, we examine the effects of incarceration on attaining high school qualifications among current and former inmates. We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, a panel study that follows a nationally representative cohort of nearly 9000 participants. There are 14 waves of data currently available. Most important for our purposes, the data include detailed measures of contact with the criminal justice system and educational experiences, as well as a variety of correlates of both. Having rich measures and longitudinal data is critical for studying the effects of incarceration because of the formidable methodological challenges with respect to selection bias. Building on the advantages of panel data, we use propensity score analysis to create a rigorous study design by matching participants who have been incarcerated to those who were incarcerated later in life. We expect that having been incarcerated will decrease the odds of completing high school, but remain open for the possibility that incarceration may have a positive effect on educational persistence and attainment.
Bibliography Citation
Bacak, Valerio and Kailey Spencer. "Incarceration and Educational Attainment: A Propensity Score Analysis." Presented: Washington, DC, Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) Annual Fall Research Conference, November 7-9, 2013.
4. Bacak, Valerio
Wildeman, Christopher
An Empirical Assessment of the "Healthy Prisoner Hypothesis"
Social Science and Medicine 138 (August 2015): 187-191.
Also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615003287
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Elsevier
Keyword(s): Depression (see also CESD); Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Incarceration/Jail; Injuries

Lower mortality among inmates, compared to the general population, is typically ascribed to access to health care during incarceration and the low risk of death due to homicide, accidents, and drug overdose. In this study, we test an alternative explanation based on selection of healthy individuals into jails and prisons--"the healthy prisoner hypothesis." According to this hypothesis, inmates have to be healthy to commit crimes and become incarcerated, which explains why they experience lower mortality than comparable segments of the general population. Using ten waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, we compare individuals who become incarcerated the following year to those who do not on four measures of health--depression, self-rated health, functional limitations, and injury or illness requiring medical attention. Results from matched samples indicate that future inmates are hardly ever in significantly better health the year prior to their incarceration. These findings strongly suggest that the paradoxical mortality advantage of inmates is not due to health selection.
Bibliography Citation
Bacak, Valerio and Christopher Wildeman. "An Empirical Assessment of the "Healthy Prisoner Hypothesis"." Social Science and Medicine 138 (August 2015): 187-191.