About

Elaine Eggleston Doherty is a Research Professor in the Department of Behavioral and Community Health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. She draws on her interdisciplinary training in criminology and public health to study the interrelationships between drug use, crime, and health over the life course. Her research includes working with the Woodlawn Study, a prospective longitudinal study of a community cohort of African Americans, focusing on life course predictors of successful aging and health as the cohort turns 60. Dr. Doherty's academic background includes a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology from Indiana University - Bloomington, an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice, and a PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland - College Park. She also completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Drug Dependence Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Her research contributions include examining the consequences of criminal justice system interventions, desistance mechanisms at the intersection of race, gender, and neighborhood context, and substance use and violent victimization among urban African Americans.

Research topics

• Developmental psychology
• Psychology
• Medicine
• Political Science
• Gerontology
• Sociology
• Demography
• Psychiatry
• Clinical psychology
• Economic growth
• Criminology

Selected publications

• Examining the Relationship Between Incarceration and Healthy Aging

  Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology · 2025-12-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Our understanding of the collateral consequences of incarceration on health, biological aging, and mortality has increased exponentially in recent years. Drawing on newly collected data on aging at age 62 and retrospective reports of incarceration history among a community cohort of Black men and women who have been prospectively followed from first grade (in 1966) to later life (modal age 62), this study adds to this growing literature by examining whether incarceration is associated with healthy aging, a concept that captures the aging experience through traditional indicators, such as physical and mental health conditions, as well as through indicators of functional ability and well-being, such as cognitive functioning, sleep, and hearing loss. By focusing on a first-grade, single-race cohort from the same socially-disadvantaged neighborhood, this study holds constant race, age, and early life context by design. Although largely a cross-sectional study, we also include key early life control variables in multivariable models. Results show that incarceration history is associated with less healthy aging compared to never being arrested using a global index and across many of the individual indicators. One unexpected finding is that many of these detriments are equally felt among the incarcerated and those with earlier stages of system contact (i.e., those arrested but not incarcerated). Taken together, these findings represent a first step in building scholarship on the association between criminal legal system contact and healthy aging, broadly defined, from a life course perspective and provide direction for future research in this emerging area. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40865-025-00286-5.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 2937 From mobility and beyond

  Age and Ageing · 2025-07-01

  article

  Abstract Introduction Frailty is a clinically recognised condition characterised by increased vulnerability due to age-related decline across various physiological systems, leading to reduced ability to cope with daily and acute stressors. Managing frailty requires a person-centred approach, involving patients, families, and caregivers, and utilising evidence-based practices such as Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA), delivered by specialist multidisciplinary (MDT) teams. Research indicates that older individuals receiving CGA are more likely to be alive and living independently at home six months after an acute illness. To support the development of Older People’s Services, a review of the service model was conducted to deliver a rapid access service for patients referred by general practitioners (GPs). This service aims to avoid emergency department (ED) visits while providing necessary CGA assessments. Method The initiative involved creating a direct referral option within the GP’s electronic referral system (Clinical Commissioning Group), developing a standard operating procedure for the triage process, establishing an education process for staff to clarify roles and responsibilities including data collection, and scheduling MDT members for triage support. Results Following the implementation of the agreed procedures, there was a notable improvement in scheduling urgent GP referrals within three days. A daily referral system with live triaging was established, along with daily post-clinic MDT meetings. The backlog of urgent GP referrals was cleared. This successful system was replicated using Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles to integrate ED referrals. Conclusion Collaborating with a team whose values aligned with Health and Social Care (HSC) principles—working together, striving for excellence, openness, honesty, and compassion—was a rewarding experience. The project provided valuable learning opportunities in team-building and service development. The success of the GP referral system was also leveraged to expand the service to other areas, such as ED referrals, demonstrating effective duplication of successful strategies.

  PublisherDOI

• Moving Beyond Failure: Modeling the Multidimensional Conceptualization of Success After Prison

  Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology · 2025-11-15 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract A recent National Academy of Sciences report emphasizes myriad shortcomings of traditional indicators of success after prison. A key criticism concerns the reliance on a binary measure of recidivism, which imposes a static conceptualization of behavioral change and ignores positive growth in other life domains. Using an indicator of “failure” (i.e., recidivism) as the metric of “success” is not only inconsistent with the realities of desisting from offending, which involves a gradual process of moving away from crime, but it also ignores evidence of incremental successes in other dimensions of the life course. Research has been empirically hindered in accounting for co-occurring processes involving transitioning away from criminal and into conventional pursuits. In this study, we leverage an innovative analytic strategy, group-based multiple trajectory modeling, to measure (1) the complexity involved in the process of reintegration and (2) the interrelationships between multiple life course domains when determining success. Using the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative ( SVORI ), we ask “What does post-release success across several life course domains look like in this sample?” And “Is there an overlap across metrics of success and failure?” We discuss how the patterns we observe relate to typical metrics of recidivism and offending trajectories. Findings provide timely evidence on the nuanced nature of reintegration, informing desistance theory and reintegration practice and policy.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Contextualizing Lives and Historical Time: Examining Changes in the Transition to Adulthood and Age-Arrest Trajectories from the 1960s to 2018

  Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency · 2024-03-14 · 6 citations

  articleSenior author

  Objectives: The changing nature and timing of adult role acquisition during the transition to adulthood over the past several decades may hold implications for criminal offending as adult roles are fundamental to theories of desistance. This research explores whether changes in adult role attainment during young adulthood are associated with the changes in the level and slope of the age-arrest trajectory over the past half-century. Methods: Combining US Census and Uniform Crime Report data, we map the average rate of adult role attainment (e.g., marriage, parenthood, labor force, independent living) and aggregate age-arrest trajectories among young adults (ages 18-24) biennially from 1960 to 2018. We fit a multilevel growth curve model where ages are nested within years to examine whether variation in the aggregate age-arrest trajectory is associated with variation in the attainment of adulthood. Results: At the macro level, periods with higher levels of adult role attainment are associated with a swifter decline in the young adult arrest rate but not the level. Conclusions: This research positions sociohistorical context at the center of life course criminological inquiry and highlights how historical shifts in the attainment and timing of adult social roles can alter behavioral patterns during the transition to adulthood.

  PublisherDOI

• From one death to another: The relationship between familial deaths and one’s own mortality risk among an urban Black American cohort

  Social Science & Medicine · 2024-11-08

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Black Americans continue to be 1.5 times more likely to experience premature death with life expectancy up to six years shorter than their white American counterparts. These racial disparities in mortality translate into Black Americans being much more likely to experience the deaths of family members at younger ages in the life course. This study examines the impact of experiencing familial death on the survivor’s mortality risk among a cohort of Black men and women. Data collected from a community cohort first assessed in 1966 (at age 6) and followed at three additional time points (ages 16, 32, and 42) are supplemented with mortality data, retrieved from the National Death Index, that include deaths through 2021 (modal age 61). Among the 941 participants who survived to age 32 and had information on familial deaths, 38.9% experienced the death of a parent, child, or sibling by age 32, and close to one-fifth (18.2%) died between ages 33 and 61. Cox regression models that adjust for early life covariates revealed a 48% higher mortality risk among those who experienced at least one familial death by age 32; separate models provide evidence that the accumulation of familial deaths is related to midlife mortality risk. Models of relationship type indicate that death of a mother or sibling is associated with a 74% and 77% increase in mortality risk, respectively. Results highlight the heavy burden of premature familial mortality on Black Americans and its adverse impact on one’s own life expectancy. • Exposure to familial death is prevalent among this cohort. • Exposure and accumulation of familial loss is related to midlife mortality risk. • Maternal or sibling loss is significantly associated with one’s own mortality risk. • Young adulthood may be a particularly sensitive period for the impact of loss.

  PublisherDOI

• Cohort Profile: The Woodlawn Study

  Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology · 2023-06-08 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• BEHAVIORAL HEALTH PREDICTORS OF PREMATURE MORTALITY IN A BLACK AMERICAN LONGITUDINAL COHORT

  Innovation in Aging · 2023-12-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Life expectancy among Americans is now the lowest it has been in 15 years. While startling, more alarming are the persistent racial disparities in mortality. Black Americans continue to die at significantly younger ages with Black men living, on average, 7.0 fewer years and Black women living 4.4 fewer years than their White counterparts. To inform intervention strategies and resource allocation, we need a complete understanding of the role that malleable factors, such as substance use and depression early in the life course, play in premature mortality for aging Black Americans. This study illuminates behavioral health factors that can be targeted to eliminate mortality disparities among a longitudinal cohort followed from childhood into their 60s. Utilizing data from the Woodlawn Study, a well-defined neighborhood cohort study of 1,242 Black Americans that began in 1966 (age 6), we examined the predictive value of family history of substance use, adolescent substance use and depression, and young adult substance use and depression. Through 2021 (modal age 61), based on National Death Index reports, 21.6% of the original cohort (n=268) has passed away. The poster will present cause and timing of death by gender and adjusted logistic regression findings showing that depression symptoms as early as adolescence (age 16) predict midlife mortality occurring between ages 32 and 60 (p=.003) and that those diagnosed with depression or a substance use disorder in young adulthood are 61% (p=.025) and 85% (p=.001) more likely to die by age 60. Policy and prevention implications will be presented.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION AMONG A LONGITUDINAL COHORT OF AGING ADULTS: EXPERIENCES OF THE WOODLAWN STUDY

  Innovation in Aging · 2023-12-01

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Minimizing participant attrition is critical to the success of longitudinal studies, but locating and retention is challenging when assessments occur decades apart. This poster will describe efforts to locate participants from the Woodlawn Study, a longitudinal cohort of 1,242 Black Americans followed since 1966 who were assessed at ages 6, 16, 32, and 42. In 2021-2023, two decades since the last assessment, we attempted to locate 1038 participants still thought to be alive to complete an Age 62 interview. Key sources for locating were online contact information databases, genealogical records, and public property records. Deceased participants were identified via National Death Index records. Strategies to encourage participation included monetary incentives, flexible scheduling options, and sharing results from previous assessments. To date, 90.8% have been located, 2.5% are unlocatable, and 6.6% have been identified as newly deceased. Although the cohort originated in Chicago, participants were located in more than 25 states. Interviews were completed with 45.7% of located participants. Approximately one-third (37.7%) did not respond to contact attempts, 6.4% were hard refusals, and 10.3% were soft refusals. Mailed letters and phone calls were the most successful contact methods; social media and email were not fruitful. Interview completion rates were highest for participants who participated at Age 42 (51.4%) and lowest among participants not reached since Age 6 (5.3%). Recruitment challenges included non-response to phone calls, suspicion about scams, and unknown accuracy of locating information. Implications for locating and maintaining aging cohort members will be presented.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Can Early Disadvantage Be Overcome? A Life Course Approach to Understanding How Disadvantage, Education, and Social Integration Impact Mortality into Middle Adulthood Among a Black American Cohort

  Prevention Science · 2022 · 13 citations

  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Demography
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Unpacking the Criminogenic Aspects of Stress Over the Life Course: The Joint Effects of Proximal Strain and Childhood Abuse on Violence and Substance Use in a High-Risk Sample of Women

  Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency · 2022-02-15 · 3 citations

  article

  Purpose: Drawing on concepts from strain, feminist, and life-course perspectives, we investigate the proximal effects of strain on violence and serious drug use along with the distal “carryover” effects of childhood abuse among women. Methods: Using 36 months of retrospective data collected from 778 incarcerated women, we estimate monthly within-person effects of four types of strain experienced in adulthood (i.e., negative life events and three forms of victimization) on respondent-initiated violence and serious drug use. Cross-level interactions assess the moderating “carryover” effects of childhood abuse and cumulative adversity. Results: Negative life events increased women's initiation of violence and serious drug use. Having a near violent experience was positively associated with violence, while violent conflict increased drug use. Experiencing both childhood physical and sexual abuse accentuated the effect of predatory victimization on violence, and physical victimization amplified the positive relationship between near violence and drug use. Unexpectedly, women who experienced childhood sexual abuse were less likely to use drugs after experiencing strain. The accumulation of adversity among abused women could not account for these moderating effects. Conclusion: Findings suggest women's recent life experiences can explain offending in the foreground, while childhood abuse can account for some within-sex heterogeneity in these relationships.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01DA033999

  NIH · $717k · 2016

Frequent coauthors

• Margaret E. Ensminger

  Johns Hopkins University

  28 shared

• Kerry M. Green

  26 shared

• Donald R. Love

  Qatar Airways (Qatar)

  13 shared

• Joan Lafferty

  Altnagelvin Area Hospital

  9 shared

• Mary McMenamin

  University of Ulster

  9 shared

• Patricia M. Kearney

  9 shared

• Vivien Coates

  University of Ulster

  9 shared

• Celine Duffy

  University of Ulster

  9 shared