About

Christopher Browning is an ASC Distinguished Professor of Sociology at The Ohio State University. He is associated with the Institute for Population Research, where his work focuses on various aspects of population studies, including health disparities, adolescent development, and spatial contexts of health. His research has addressed issues such as communities vulnerable to opioid addiction, childhood lead exposure and adolescent risk-taking behaviors, and the sociospatial context of health disparities. Dr. Browning's contributions include conducting studies on health and mortality among adolescents and young adults, utilizing diverse data collection and analysis methods to understand complex social and health-related phenomena.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Psychology
• Demography
• Geography
• Medicine
• Social Science
• Gerontology
• Environmental health
• Statistics
• Economic growth
• Psychiatry
• Cartography
• Biology
• Demographic economics
• Data science
• Mathematics
• Criminology

Selected publications

• Geographic isolation, compelled mobility, and adolescent risk behavior

  Urban Studies · 2026-03-18

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We explore alternative hypotheses regarding the association between activity space racial composition, and risk behavior among Black-identifying urban youth. Racial isolation perspectives argue that exposure to Black-segregated neighborhoods limits access to mainstream institutions and influence, increasing participation in risk behavior (violence, delinquency, and substance/alcohol use). An alternative compelled mobility perspective argues that Black youth spend a substantial amount of time in low-proportion Black, largely white neighborhoods seeking organizational resources typically less available in segregated areas. These exposures may lead to discrimination-related strain, detachment from conventional norms, and elevated physiological stress, increasing the likelihood of risk behavior compared to Black youth who spend more time in same-race-dominated activity spaces. We test these competing hypotheses employing data from the Columbus, Ohio, USA-based Adolescent Health and Development in Context study on the geospatial exposures and both survey and ecological momentary assessment-reported behaviors of 506 Black youth aged 11–17. Contrary to the expectations of the isolation model, we find that greater exposure to residentially low-proportion Black areas is associated with an increased likelihood of risk behavior for Black males. We consider implications of findings for extant theories and data collection approaches in research examining spatial effects on adolescent risk behavior.

  PublisherDOI

• State of Ohio Adversity and Resilience (SOAR) study protocol: a comprehensive, multimodal, family-based, longitudinal observational investigation of risk and resilience in mental health and substance use disorders

  BMJ Open · 2025-11-01

  articleOpen access

  INTRODUCTION: Deaths related to drug overdose and suicide in the USA have increased 500% and 35%, respectively, over the last two decades. The human and economic costs to society associated with these 'deaths of despair' are immense. Great efforts and substantial investments have been made in treatment and prevention, yet these efforts have not abated these increasing trajectories of deaths over time. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated and highlighted these problems. Notably, some geographical areas (eg, Appalachia, farmland) and some communities (eg, low-income persons, 'essential workers', minoritised populations) have been disproportionately affected. Risk factors have been identified for substance use and suicide deaths: forms of adversity, neglect, opportunity indexes and trauma. Yet, the biological, psychological and social mechanisms driving risk are not uniform. Notably, most people exposed to risk factors do not become symptomatic and could broadly be considered resilient. Achieving a better understanding of biological, psychological and social mechanisms underlying both pathology and resilience will be crucial for improving approaches for prevention and treatment and creating precision medicine approaches for more efficient and effective treatment. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The State of Ohio Adversity and Resilience (SOAR) study is a prospective, longitudinal, multimodal, integrated familial study designed to identify biological, psychological and social risk and resilience factors and processes leading to mental health disorders, substance use disorders, substance overdose, suicide and associated psychological/medical comorbidities which reduce life expectancy and quality of life. It includes two nested longitudinal samples: (1) WD Survey: an address-based random population epidemiological sample of 15 000 individuals (unique households) representative of the state of Ohio assessed for psychosocial, psychiatric, behavioural health and substance use factors and (2) Brain Health Study: a family-based, multimodal, deep-phenotyping study conducted in 1200 families (up to 3600 persons aged 12-72 years) including MRI, electroencephalography, blood biomarkers and psychiatric diagnostic interviews, as well as neuropsychological, psychosocial functioning and family/community history, dynamics and support assessments. SOAR is designed to discover, develop and deploy advanced predictive analytics and interventions to transform mental health prevention, diagnosis, treatment and recovery. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: All participants will provide written informed consent (or parental permission and assent for minors). The study was approved by The Ohio State University Institutional Review Board (study numbers 2023H0316 (Brain Health) and 2023H0350 (Wellness Survey). The Brain Health study was also approved by institutional review boards at each partnering institution involved in conducting participant assessments. Findings will be disseminated to academic peers, clinicians and healthcare consumers, policymakers and the general public, using local and international academic channels (academic journals, evidence briefs and conferences) and outreach (workshops and seminars).

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ecological Momentary Assessment of Emotion Regulation and Suicidal Ideation in First-Episode Psychosis

  Schizophrenia Bulletin · 2025-03-11 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Individuals with first-episode psychosis (FEP) are at increased risk for suicide, though few studies have examined the extent to which emotion regulation abnormalities contribute to this risk. The current study sought to address this gap by examining which stages of emotion regulation (ie, identification, selection, implementation) are related to suicidal ideation among individuals with FEP. Forty-one participants completed 28 days of ecological momentary assessment to assess suicidal ideation, negative affect, and emotion regulation in real-time. Results indicated that all 3 stages of emotion regulation were related to suicidal ideation in FEP. Specifically, within-person emotion regulation interacted with between-person negative affect to predict concurrent suicidal ideation (identification stage). Additionally, decreased use of adaptive strategies and increased use of maladaptive strategies were associated with more severe suicidal ideation (selection stage). Finally, decreased emotion regulation effectiveness was associated with more severe suicidal ideation (implementation stage). These findings suggest that emotion regulation difficulties might contribute to the high rates of suicide risk among individuals with FEP. Additional research is needed to determine whether these emotion regulation difficulties are unique to FEP or if they also appear in other high-risk groups.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Toward a Data Processing Pipeline for Mobile-Phone Tracking Data

  ArXiv.org · 2025-07-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  As mobile phones become ubiquitous, high-frequency smartphone positioning data are increasingly being used by researchers studying the mobility patterns of individuals as they go about their daily routines and the consequences of these patterns for health, behavioral, and other outcomes. A complex data pipeline underlies empirical research leveraging mobile phone tracking data. A key component of this pipeline is transforming raw, time-stamped positions into analysis-ready data objects, typically space-time "trajectories." In this paper, we break down a key portion of the data analysis pipeline underlying the Adolescent Health and Development in Context (AHDC) Study, a large-scale, longitudinal study of youth residing in the Columbus, OH metropolitan area. Recognizing that the bespoke "binning algorithm" used by AHDC researchers resembles a time-series filtering algorithm, we propose a statistical framework - a formal probability model and computational approach to inference - inspired by the binning algorithm for transforming noisy, time-stamped geographic positioning observations into mobility trajectories that capture periods of travel and stability. Our framework, unlike the binning algorithm, allows for formal smoothing via a particle Gibbs algorithm, improving estimation of trajectories as compared to the original binning algorithm. We argue that our framework can be used as a default data processing tool for future mobile-phone tracking studies.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Child Maltreatment and Adolescents’ Exposure to Disorder in Daily Activity Spaces

  Journal of Youth and Adolescence · 2025-06-23

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Minimal research has explored how child maltreatment shapes adolescents’ exposure to risky environments within youth activity spaces (the places youth visit during their daily routine) which likely influences youth well-being. This study examined the extent to which child maltreatment and neighborhood disorder, individually and collectively, are associated with adolescents’ exposure to physical and social disorder in their activity spaces. Participants were 1215 adolescents (47% boys, M age = 14.26, SD age = 1.87) recruited from a Midwestern city in the United States. Multilevel modeling was conducted. The results indicated a positive association between child maltreatment and disordered activity spaces, with no significant moderation by residential neighborhood-level disorder. The findings point to the need for enhanced maltreatment prevention efforts and targeted interventions to mitigate environmental risks for adolescents with maltreatment histories.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cross-sectional and longitudinal influences of stress mindset on adolescent depressive symptoms and cannabis use

  Anxiety Stress & Coping · 2025-05-22 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: A stress-is-enhancing mindset refers to viewing the nature of stress as enhancing rather than debilitating and has been linked to better mental health in response to stressors. We examined the cross-sectional and longitudinal link between stress mindset and two mental health outcomes, depressive symptoms and cannabis use, over the COVID-19 pandemic in a diverse sample of adolescents. DESIGN AND METHODS: A community sample of adolescents completed measures assessing depressive symptoms, cannabis use, and intentions to use cannabis at three time points (T1: 2018-2020, N = 299, T2: 2020, N = 219, T3: 2021, N = 173). Participants completed the stress mindset measure at T2. RESULTS: Cross-sectionally, a more stress-is-enhancing mindset was associated with fewer depressive symptoms and reduced intentions to use cannabis, which in turn were associated with less cannabis use. Longitudinally, a more stress-is-enhancing mindset was associated with fewer depressive symptoms and indirectly associated with less future cannabis use through behavioral intentions to use cannabis. CONCLUSION: This study establishes a stress-is-enhancing mindset as a protective factor against cannabis use and contributes to a growing literature that stress mindset is protective against depression, indicating that stress mindset may be an important protective factor even in the face of naturalistic, chronic stressors.

  PublisherDOI

• The association between levels of GPS-tracked activity space violent crime and the relationship between cortisol and a biomarker of inflammation amongst Black and White adolescents

  Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025-12-11

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Gendered spatial mobilities in urban neighbourhoods: Women’s and men’s victimisation, perceptions of risk, and gendered threat in their neighbourhood activity space

  Urban Studies · 2025-11-20 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  An individual’s activity space reflects their physical movement through and exposure to environments, including potentially risky settings. Historically, women’s and men’s activity spaces differed as a function of gendered household responsibilities. There are also gendered dynamics of place including experiences of victimisation, women’s heightened perceptions of victimisation risk, and perceived gendered threat for women that influence gendered spatial mobility patterns. Victimisation, risk and threat are known to have distinct spatial and temporal rhythms, which may lead women to withdraw from public spaces. This paper considers the intersection of all these factors and their relationship to women’s and men’s neighbourhood activity spaces. Drawing on individual global positioning system data for 365 participants living in Brisbane Australia over a seven-day period and using structural equation modelling, we seek to understand the predictors of activity space characteristics for women and men across day and night. We operationalise activity spaces through potential neighbourhood street networks (potential entropy), users’ actual movement (user entropy), and duration of time spent in the neighbourhood. Our findings reveal that women’s victimisation experiences and perceptions of community action are important predictors of time spent in the neighbourhood. Furthermore, street network configuration (potential entropy) is associated with actual user movement (user entropy). The findings have implications for gender-sensitive design in urban neighbourhood settings, in highlighting the interaction between social environments and physical environments in women’s and men’s daily mobility.

  PublisherDOI

• Mobility Network-based Measurement of Local Collective Efficacy and its Consequences for the Spatial Patterning of Violent Crime

  Journal of Quantitative Criminology · 2025-08-12

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Objectives Estimate the extent to which local variation in collective efficacy, a measure of social cohesion and norms toward intervention among individuals, is associated with the sub-neighborhood spatial patterning of violent crime in Columbus, OH. Methods Using estimates of local collective efficacy derived from survey data on individuals’ perceptions of collective efficacy in the neighborhoods and at their routine activity locations collected as part of the Adolescent Health and Development in Context Study and incident-level, point-referenced crime data from the Ohio Incident-Based Reporting System, we fit inhomogeneous Poisson process models. Results We find that net of neighborhood-level collective efficacy, a one standard deviation increase in deviation in the local collective efficacy score from the neighborhood average local collective efficacy score is associated with a decline in the violent crime intensity by a factor of 0.858. Conclusions Affirming Jane Jacobs’ arguments about informal social control dynamics at fine-grained levels, our study illustrates that collective efficacy operates and can be measured at sub-neighborhood levels across the entirety of a city. Our findings highlight the need to measure social processes at finer spatial scales in order to understand their effects on crime. Future research should prioritize collecting additional fine-grained data on social processes using individuals’ perceptions of the locations they frequent as part of their everyday mobility patterns.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Is Using a Financial Advisor Related to Cryptocurrency Investment?

  Financial Services Review · 2025-10-02 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Do financial advisors recommend cryptocurrency investment within a household portfolio? Cryptocurrencies have emerged in popularity as households seek to maximize returns. Financial advisors are expected to provide beneficial advice for a household in managing financial decisions including investments. The existing literature has examined this relatively new form of investing and found some determinants for cryptocurrency investment but has not sufficiently explored the association between this investment option and the investor’s use of a financial advisor. With data from the 2018 wave of the National Financial Capabilities Study (NFCS), this paper examines the relationship between cryptocurrency investment and the use of a financial advisor for American investors. The results suggest that investors who use a financial advisor are more likely to be invested in cryptocurrencies. Additional determinants seen in previous works are also confirmed in the current study; showing that men, younger investors, married investors, and investors with a higher tolerance for risk are more likely to have cryptocurrency investments.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Adolescent Health and Development in Context

  NIH · $2.9M · 2011–2017

• NIH Grant R01HD042405

  NIH · $889k · 2009

• NIH Grant R01HD057945

  NIH · $983k · 2013

Frequent coauthors

• Jodi L. Ford

  The Ohio State University

  37 shared

• Jake Tarrence

  Florida State University

  33 shared

• Catherine A. Calder

  The University of Texas at Austin

  29 shared

• Kathleen A. Cagney

  University of Liverpool

  28 shared

• Darlene A. Kertes

  University of Florida

  25 shared

• Bethany Boettner

  The Ohio State University

  24 shared

• Baldwin M. Way

  22 shared

• Kammi K. Schmeer

  The Ohio State University

  20 shared

Awards & honors

• ASC Distinguished Professor, Sociology