Presented by Nicole Novak, PhD, MSc
Assistant Professor
Department of Community and Behavioral Health
University of Iowa College of Public Health

Nicole Novak is co-director of the Sterilization and Social Justice Lab, a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional team which conducts and disseminates research on eugenic sterilization in the United States. In the first half of the twentieth century, 32 US states passed eugenic sterilization laws authorizing medical officials to sterilize people deemed “unfit” to reproduce. This seminar reviews epidemiological and mixed-methods research on five state programs (California, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina and Utah), drawing on archival records, datasets abstracted from historical records, and historical Census data. Population-based analysis of over 30,000 sterilization records identifies disproportionately high sterilization of people with disabilities, Latinos, Black Americans and some immigrant groups. Mixed-methods analysis highlights complex dynamics of consent and coercion in the implementation of sterilization programs. This research has enduring relevance to contemporary public health and directly informed a reparations policy to compensate living survivors of involuntary sterilization in California.