Faculty Directory
Summer Sherburne Hawkins
Associate Professor
Summer Sherburne Hawkins
Ph.D.
Contact
McGuinn Hall 210
Telephone: 617-552-0945
Email: summer.hawkins@bc.edu
Education
- B.A., Vassar College
- M.S., Drexel University
- Ph.D., University of London
Research Interests
Social Epidemiology; Policy Evaluation; Health Disparities; Tobacco Use; Infant Feeding
Expertise
- Disparities
- Maternal and Child Health
- Social Service Policies and Practice Effectiveness
In the News
Boston College Magazine: Where there's smoke
National Institutes of Health: Do cigarette taxes and smoke-free legislation reduce teen smoking?
Profile
Associate Professor Summer Sherburne Hawkins, PhD, MS, joined the Boston College School of Social Work (BCSSW) faculty in 2012. She is a social epidemiologist with an interest in addressing policy-relevant research questions in maternal and child health. Her research examines the impact of policies on health disparities in parents and children, particularly using methodology that integrates epidemiology and economics. Dr. Hawkins has published on the topics of parental and adolescent tobacco use, infant feeding practices, and childhood obesity as well as the impact of state and local policies on disparities in these health behaviors and outcomes. A more recent area of her research focuses on the role of the Affordable Care Act on the uptake of preventive health services. In January 2017, she received a 3-year grant from the American Cancer Society titled, Impact of the ACA on the prevention and early detection of women’s cancers.
Dr. Hawkins is currently the Section Editor for Health Policies, Systems and Management in High-Income Countries of BMC Public Health, on the editorial board of Maternal and Child Nutrition and an active member of the University Research Council at Boston College. Prior to joining BCSSW, Dr. Hawkins was a Cohort 7 Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health from 2009-2011.
Select Publications
Hawkins SS, Kull M, Baum CF. US state cigarette tax increases and smoke-free legislation in relation to cigarette expenditure across household socioeconomic circumstances: a quasi-experimental study. Addiction 2019;114(4):721-729. PMID: 30461118.
Ghiani M, Hawkins SS, Baum CF. Gun laws and suicide. American Journal of Epidemiology 2019;188(7):1254-1261. PMID: 30874719.
Hawkins SS, Baum CF, Rifas-Shiman SL, Oken E, Taveras EM. Examining associations between perinatal and postnatal risk factors for childhood obesity using sibling comparisons. Childhood Obesity 2019;15(4):254-261. PMID: 30883194.
Ghiani M, Hawkins SS, Baum CF. Gun laws and school safety. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2019;73(6):509-515. PMID: 30898852.
Hawkins SS, Bach N, Baum CF. Impact of tobacco control policies on adolescent smokeless tobacco and cigar use: a difference-in-differences approach. BMC Public Health 2018;18(1):154. PMID: 29444658.
Hawkins SS, Noble A, Baum CF. Effect of the Affordable Care Act on Disparities in Breastfeeding: The Case of Maine. American Journal of Public Health 2017;107(7):1119-1121. PMID: 2850483.
Hawkins SS, Hristakeva S, Gottlieb M, Baum CF. Reduction in emergency department visits for children’s asthma, ear infections, and respiratory infections after the introduction of state smoke-free legislation. Preventive Medicine 2016;89:278-285. PMID: 27283094.
Hawkins SS, Bach N, Baum CF. Impact of tobacco control policies on adolescent smoking. Journal of Adolescent Health 2016;58(6):679-685. PMID: 27151762.
Hawkins SS, Gillman MW, Rifas-Shiman SL, Kleinman KP, Mariotti M, Taveras EM. The Linked CENTURY Study: Linking three decades of clinical and public health data to examine disparities in childhood obesity. BMC Pediatrics 2016;16(1):32. PMID: 26961130.
Hawkins SS, Baum CF. Invited commentary: An interdisciplinary approach for policy evaluation. American Journal of Epidemiology 2016;183(6):539-541. PMID: 26946396.