Departmental Affiliations
Dylan B. Jackson, PhD '15, MS, focuses on promoting the health and well-being of children, youth, and families in the face of violence, adversity, and exposure to the criminal legal system.
Research Interests
child health; adolescent health; crime; violence; criminal legal system; justice-involved families; incarceration; policing; adverse childhood experiences; trauma-informed policy; mental health; social support; prevention science; life course; health equity
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Experiences & Accomplishments
As a developmental and health criminologist, Dr. Dylan Jackson uses a life-course lens to study the intersection of crime, criminal legal system contact, and health among children, youth, and families. His primary goal is to conduct research that informs policies and interventions that reduce health inequities for children, youth, and families impacted by crime and the criminal legal system. He applies interdisciplinary quantitative methods to study four substantive areas: 1) policing and adolescent health, 2) incarceration and health across the life course, 3) the health sequalae of violence and adverse childhood experiences, and 4) health promotion as developmental crime prevention.
He has published peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals, including JAMA Pediatrics, Pediatrics, American Journal of Public Health, Health Affairs, American Psychologist and Criminology, and has secured funding from the National Institutes of Health, Arnold Ventures, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Johns Hopkins University, the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, and the Bloomberg American Health Initiative. He is co-director of the Health Criminology Research Consortium (HCRC), an interdisciplinary collaboration of 40 US researchers and practitioners focused on improving the effectiveness of justice-related policy and practice. He is also a member of the national Justice-Involved Women and Children (JIWC) collaborative, which explores policy and advocacy opportunities and provides training and technical assistance to professionals working with justice-impacted women and children. Additionally, he is a founding member of Improving Police-Adolescent Relationships through Training (IMPART), a collaborative of scholars, lawyers, government officials, and law enforcement in the mid-Atlantic region to develop and implement adolescent-focused training for police. Through these collaborations, he aims to build research and intervention capacity at the intersection of criminology, public health, and developmental science. His ultimate objective is to co-create policy and programmatic solutions with justice-impacted youth and families.
Select Publications
Jackson, D. B. (2021). The case for conceptualizing youth–police contact as a racialized adverse childhood experience. American Journal of Public Health, 111(7), 1189-1191.
Jackson, D. B., Fahmy, C., Vaughn, M. G., & Testa, A. (2019). Police stops among at-risk youth: Repercussions for mental health. Journal of Adolescent Health, 65(5), 627-632.
Jackson, D. B., & Vaughn, M. G. (2018). Promoting health equity to prevent crime. Preventive Medicine, 113, 91-94.
Jackson, D. B., Del Toro, J., Semenza, D. C., Testa, A., & Vaughn, M. G. (2021). Unpacking racial/ethnic disparities in emotional distress among adolescents during witnessed police stops. Journal of Adolescent Health, 69(2), 248-254.
Jackson, D. B., Posick, C., & Vaughn, M. G. (2019). New evidence of the nexus between neighborhood violence, perceptions of danger, and child health. Health Affairs, 38(5), 746-754.
Jackson, D. B., Testa, A., & Vaughn, M. G. (2021). Parental incarceration and children’s living arrangements in the United States. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 1-17.