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Add Health study recognized in the Journal of General Internal Medicine for comprehensive incarceration questions

 

In a review in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, the Add Health study was described as a leading source of “high-impact incarceration-related health research” among 36 major data sets related to incarceration. The Add Health survey employed a comprehensive approach which asked participants about incarceration status and detailed incarceration history in a manner that was appropriate for analysis by other researchers. Add Health also gathered valuable information about year, length, and family history of incarceration. This detailed information about incarceration is valuable in informing policy related to the growing cost of health care and incarceration.

View the abstract or download the complete article (2012)

Authors

  • Cyrus Ahalt, San Francisco VA Medical Center; Division of Geriatrics, University of California, San Francisco
  • Ingrid Binswanger, Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine
  • Michael Steinman, San Francisco VA Medical Center; Division of Geriatrics, University of California, San Francisco
  • Brie A. Williams, San Francisco VA Medical Center; Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco; Division of Geriatrics, University of California, San Francisco


Citation

Ahalt, C., et al. (2012). “Confined to Ignorance: The Absence of Prisoner Information from Nationally Representative Health Data Sets.” J Gen Intern Med 27(2): 160-166.

Health Outcomes in Young Adults From Foster Care and Economically Diverse Backgrounds

Using data from both the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health and the Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth, researchers explored the risk of health problems in former foster children. Kym R. Ahrens, Michelle M. Garrison, and Mark E. Courtney examined  whether young adults with a foster or economically insecure background had a greater risk of developing chronic health conditions, such as hypertension and diabetes, than young adults from economically secure backgrounds.  They found that those from an economically secure background had the lowest risk of chronic disease, and former foster children had the highest risk, even beyond  what could be attributed to  financial insecurity.  Former foster children and economically insecure young adults were also less likely to  have health insurance when compared to the economically secure group.

View the abstract or download the complete article in Pediatrics (November 2014)

Authors

  • Kym R. Ahrens, Center for Child Health Behavior and Development, Seattle Children’s Hospital & Research Institute;  Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine
  • Michelle M. Garrison, Center for Child Health Behavior and Development, Seattle Children’s Hospital & Research Institute; Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Washington School of Medicine
  • Mark E. Courtney, School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago

Citation

Ahrens KR, Garrison MM, Courtney ME. Health Outcomes in Young Adults From Foster Care and Economically Diverse Backgrounds. Pediatrics 2014; 134(6):1-8.

Washington Post & ABC News feature Add Health research on network ecology and adolescent social structure

Using longitudinal friendship data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, as well as individual classroom data from the Classroom Engagement Study, researchers explored social network differences among schools. The research team of Daniel A. McFarland, James W. Moody, David Diehl, Jeffrey A. Smith, and Reuben J. Thomas developed a theory of network ecology in order to explore how the features of a school environment, such as size and demographic composition, may influence the formation of social networks. They found that in larger schools the student body tends to be more segregated than in smaller schools, with higher prevalence of social hierarchies and clustering.  Social exclusion has a higher cost for students in smaller schools, and thus it happens less frequently. In larger schools, this exclusion cost is lower because there are more peers to form relationships with.

Read the Washington Post story here: Why some high schools are less cliquey than others (released on November 11, 2014 by Gail Sullivan).

Read the ABC News story here: See If Your Kids’ School Is at Risk for Cliques (released on November 11, 2014 by Genevieve Shaw Brown).

Excerpt from The Washington Post: “At large schools where the student body is more diverse, students are compelled by a mixture of freedom and uncertainty to cluster into groups with others like themselves, an instinct called ‘homophily.’ At smaller schools, there’s a higher cost to excluding people because fewer students mean fewer potential friends, so cliques are less common.

But small schools and less choice isn’t necessarily better, McFarland cautioned: ‘What may work well for a shy child may not work well for a gregarious one, and neither solution may prepare them well for the realities of adulthood. We just need to study it and see.’”

Author Info: Daniel A. McFarland is a Professor of Education, Sociology, and Organizational Behavior at Stanford University. James W. Moody is the Robert O. Keohane professor of Sociology at Duke University, and he is also affiliated with King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. David Diehl is an Assistant Professor of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education. Jeffrey A. Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Reuben J. Thomas is an Assistant Professor  of Sociology at the University of New Mexico.

Scholarly source: McFarland DA, Moody  J, Diehl D, Smith JA, Thomas RJ. Network Ecology and Adolescent Social Structure. American Sociological Review 2014; 79(6):1088-1121. Article available online.

Change to the Add Health Study Name

Include the new study name, National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, in your Add Health publications

Add Health has been renamed the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to reflect the study’s ongoing, real time life view that follows individuals from early adolescence into adulthood.  Add Health researchers should use the new study name in all publications, presentations and reports based on analysis of Add Health data, as well as grant submissions that reference Add Health, and when citing the Add Health research design. 

To reference the research design of Add Health data, please use the following citation:

Harris, K.M., C.T. Halpern, E. Whitsel, J. Hussey, J. Tabor, P. Entzel, and J.R. Udry. 2009. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health: Research Design [WWW document]. URL: https://addhealth.cpc.unc.edu//documentation/study-design.

Add Health researchers should use the following acknowledgement in written reports and other publications based on analysis of Add Health data:

This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website. No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.

Add Health funded for Wave V

The National Institutes of Health recently awarded a $28 million grant as a program project that will enable Add Health to follow the original adolescent cohort into their 30s with a fifth interview wave. The new funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) will support a fifth wave of data collection, analysis, and dissemination. This five-year project is planned to begin in 2016 when the Add Health participants will be ages 31-42.

In addition to collecting a new round of social and biological data, this fifth wave will also gather information on respondents’ birth and childhood circumstances including the collection of birth records data for a subset of respondents. Together with existing Add Health data collected over 20 years the scientific community will be able to investigate an invaluable 40-year longitudinal record of the Add Health cohort from birth through the fourth decade of life. These data will be shared with the multi-disciplinary community of researchers to test hypotheses about the causes of chronic disease and inform public health policies for reducing chronic disease prevalence, disparities, and costs in America.

To reflect this study’s ongoing, real time life view that follows individuals from early adolescence into adulthood, Add Health has been renamed the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health.  Beginning in childhood and following the cohort into adulthood represents a major investment by NICHD to understand how social, behavioral, and biological linkages in early life shape the developmental and health pathways into adulthood; NICHD will realize the payoff for its investment with the new data in Wave V of Add Health when scientific discovery of the social, behavioral, and biological processes that lead to health and disease risks will be identified and interventions can be developed to reduce these risks in early life.

Click here for more information on Wave V

UNC News release issued September 25, 2014

Wave V News release also posted to the Carolina Population Center website

Add Health Study: A longitudinal study of paternal mental health during transition to fatherhood as young adults

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a research team from Northwestern University, University of California-Irvine, and Boston College, studied the effect of fatherhood on paternal mental health. The research team of Craig F. Garfield, Greg Duncan, Joshua Rutsohn, Thomas W. McDade, Emma K. Adam, Rebekah Levine Coley, and P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, analyzed depressive symptoms among three groups of young adult men, nonfathers, nonresident fathers, and resident fathers. They found that depressive symptoms are highest for resident fathers and lowest for nonfathers in this age group.

Read the USA Today story here: Depression risks increase for young dads (released on April 14, 2014 by Michelle Healy).

Excerpt: “Symptoms of depression increased on average by 68% over the first five years of fatherhood for men who were around 25 years old when they became fathers and lived with their children, according to the study published online today in the journal Pediatrics.

Garfield’s previous research has shown depressed dads will use more corporal punishment, read less and interact less with their children, and are more likely to be stressed and neglect their children. Compared with the children of non-depressed dads, these children are at risk for having poor language and reading development and more behavior problems and conduct disorders. ‘The next question is why are there these differences and how can we avoid making a one-size-fits-all approach to paternal depression and actually tailor something to fit individual needs?’ he says.”

Craig F. Garfield is an Associate Professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in the Departments of Pediatrics and Medical Social Sciences, who is also affiliated with the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research in Evanston, Illinois.  Greg Duncan is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California-Irvine’s School of Education.  Joshua Rutsohn is a researcher at Northwestern University’s Department Medical Social Sciences. Thomas W. McDade is a Professor at Northwestern University’s Department of Anthropology and the Director of Cells to Society at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research.  Emma K. Adam is Professor at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy. Rebekah Levine Coley is a Professor of Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education. P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale is an Associate Provost for Faculty at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research and Frances Willard Professor of Human Development and Social Policy.

Scholarly source:  Garfield CF, Duncan G, Rutsohn J, McDade TW, Adam EK, Coley RL, Chase-Lansdale PL. A longitudinal study of paternal mental health during transition to fatherhood as young adults. Pediatrics 2014. Article available online.

Add Health Study: Long-term effects of birth weight and breastfeeding duration on inflammation in early adulthood

 

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a research team from Northwestern University, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of California-Irvine studied the effect of birth weight and breastfeeding on early adulthood inflammation. The research team of Thomas W. McDade, Molly W. Metzger, Laura Chyu, Greg J. Duncan, Craig Garfield, and Emma K. Adam assessed birth weight and length of breastfeeding as predictors of C-reactive protein (an inflammation biomarker) in adults aged 24-32. They found that C-reactive protein concentrations were lower among breastfed individuals than individuals not breastfed, and that the longer an individual was breastfed, the lower their CRP concentration was in young adulthood.  The authors also reported that for birth weights of 2.8 kg and higher, birth weight was negatively associated with C-reactive protein in young adulthood.

Read the Huffington Post story here:  Breastfeeding may protect against heart disease, study (released on April 23, 2014). 

Excerpt:  “The study found that breastfeeding had ‘the same or greater effect’ as medicines on reducing CRP levels in young adults. Chronic inflammation had long been linked to cardiovascular disease, but the causes of the little-understood condition remain unclear.

‘The results suggest that breastfeeding may reduce a major risk factor for heart disease well into adulthood,’ said Alan Guttmacher, director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.”

Thomas W. McDade is a Professor at Northwestern University’s Department of Anthropology and the Director of Cells to Society at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research.  Molly W. Metzger is an Assistant Professor at the Washington University in St. Louis George Warren Brown School of Social Work. Laura Chyu is a Fellow at Cells to Society at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research. Greg Duncan is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California-Irvine’s School of Education.  Craig F. Garfield is an Associate Professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in the Departments of Pediatrics and Medical Social Sciences, who is also affiliated with the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research in Evanston, Illinois.  Emma K. Adam is Professor at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy.

Scholarly source:  McDade TW, Metzger MW, Chyu L, Duncan GJ, Garfield C, Adam EK. Long-term effects of birth weight and breastfeeding duration on inflammation in early adulthood. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 2014. Article available online.

Simple Sequence Repeats in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health: An Ethnically Diverse Resource for Genetic Analysis of Health and Behavior


Published in

Behavior Genetics (June 2014). doi: 10.1007/s10519-014-9662-x

Abstract:

Simple sequence repeats (SSRs) are one of the earliest available forms of genetic variation available for analysis and have been utilized in studies of neurological, behavioral, and health phenotypes. Although findings from these studies have been suggestive, their interpretation has been complicated by a variety of factors including, among others, limited power due to small sample sizes. The current report details the availability, diversity, and allele and genotype frequencies of six commonly examined SSRs in the ethnically diverse, population-based National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. A total of 106,743 genotypes were generated across 15,140 participants that included four microsatellites and two di-nucleotide repeats in three dopamine genes (DAT1, DRD4, DRD5), the serotonin transporter, and monoamine oxidase A. Allele and genotype frequencies showed a complex pattern and differed significantly between populations. For both di-nucleotide repeats we observed a greater allelic diversity than previously reported. The availability of these six SSRs in a large, ethnically diverse sample with extensive environmental measures assessed longitudinally offers a unique resource for researchers interested in health and behavior.

View or download complete article at Springer Link.

Authors

  • Brett C. Haberstick, Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Andrew Smolen, Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Gary L. Stetler, Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Joyce W. Tabor, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
  • Taylor Roy, Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder
  • H. Rick Casey, Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Alicia Pardo, Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Forest Roy, Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Lauren A. Ryals, Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Christina Hewitt, Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Eric A. Whitsel, Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health; Department of Medicine, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine
  • Carolyn T. Halpern, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; Department of Maternal and Child Health, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health
  • Ley A. Killeya-Jones, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
  • Jeffrey M. Lessem, Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder
  • John K. Hewitt, Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Kathleen Mullan Harris, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

Explaining Asian Americans’ academic advantage over whites


Published in

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Citation

Hsin A, Xie Y. Explaining Asian Americans’ academic advantage over whites. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2014 June 10;111(23): 8416-842.  doi: 10.1073/pnas.1406402111

Abstract

The superior academic achievement of Asian Americans is a well-documented phenomenon that lacks a widely accepted explanation. Asian Americans’ advantage in this respect has been attributed to three groups of factors: (i) socio-demographic characteristics, (ii) cognitive ability, and (iii) academic effort as measured by characteristics such as attentiveness and work ethic. We combine data from two nationally representative cohort longitudinal surveys to compare Asian-American and white students in their educational trajectories from kindergarten through high school. We find that the Asian-American educational advantage is attributable mainly to Asian students exerting greater academic effort and not to advantages in tested cognitive abilities or socio-demographics. We test explanations for the Asian–white gap in academic effort and find that the gap can be further attributed to (i) cultural differences in beliefs regarding the connection between effort and achievement and (ii) immigration status. Finally, we highlight the potential psychological and social costs associated with Asian-American achievement success.

View or download complete article at www.pnas.org

Authors

  • Amy Hsin, Queens College, City University of New York
  • Yu Xie, Institute for Social Research and Department of Sociology, University of Michigan; Center for Social Research, Peking University

Register now for the 2014 Add Health Users Conference

2014 Add Health Users Conference

Celebrating 20 Years of Add Health!

We invite you to register for the eleventh Add Health Users Conference to be held on June 26-27, 2014 on the campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.  The principal goal of the conference is to give researchers who are working with data from Add Health an opportunity to share research goals, experiences, and results.  It will also provide an opportunity for those interested in working with the data to learn how they are currently being used by others.  A preliminary agenda will be available online soon!

Conference information and on-line registration are available on the Add Health website.  Please contact Sarah Dean if you have questions.