Location
Office: Thompson 902

Bio

I am a sociologist who examines the creation and perpetuation of inequality in health and in the law. I examine how social identities shape individuals' beliefs, reasoning, and behaviors, and how these individual variations then exacerbate social inequalities using both quantitative and qualitative methods.

My dissertation, "Surviving Suicide," examines how social identities affect cultural narratives about suicide experiences. Using in-depth interviews with 102 suicide survivors, I am investigating (a) how individuals' cultural narratives about suicide differ across social identities, (b) how these cultural narratives relate to individuals' suicide experiences and post-suicide lives—i.e. their relationships, work, health, and housing, and (c) how these narratives can inform suicide prevention and post-vention strategies. This project is funded by the National Science Foundation, the American Sociological Association Culture Section, the UMass Graduate School, and the UMass Sociology Department.

My research is published in Social Science & MedicineLaw & Society Review, Sociological Perspectives, and the Utah Law Review. I also served as the Editorial Assistant for the Law & Society Review from 2019-2023 and a Graduate Fellow for the UMass Center for Justice, Law, & Societies from 2021-2022.

Education

M.A., Sociology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2019

B.A., Psychology, Dartmouth College, 2016

Research Areas

Mental Health; Medical Sociology; Law & Society; Social Class; Culture; Statification; Social Psychology

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Billings, Katie R. and Kathryne M. Young. 2022. "How Cultural Capital Shapes Mental Health Care Seeking in College." Sociological Perspectives.

Statz, Michele, Katie R. Billings, and Jordan Wolf. 2021. "Rurality as Concordance: Mental Health Service Delivery for Rural Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence." Sociological Perspectives, 65(3) 485-505.

Billings, Katie R., David A. Cort, Tannuja D. Rozario, and Derek P. Siegel. 2020. "Stigma Beliefs in Context: Country and Regional Variation in the Effects of Instrumental Stigma Beliefs on Protective Sexual Behaviors in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Southern Africa." Social Science & Medicine

Young, Kathryne M. and Katie R. Billings. 2020. "Cultural Capital and Legal Consciousness." Law & Society Review54(1) 33-65.

Billings, Katie R. 2020. "Stigma in Class: Mental Illness, Social Class, and Tokenism in Elite College Culture." Sociological Perspectives. 64(2) 238-257.

Additional Publications

Billings, Katie R. "Mental Illness and Culture." [Forthcoming] Invited chapter in Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society.

Young, Kathryne M. and Katie R. Billings. 2023. "An Intersectional Examination of U.S. Civil Justice Problems." Utah Law Review, 2023(3).