Restricted-Use Data Dissemination and Contract Administration

Restricted-Use Data Dissemination and Contract Administration

The Carolina Population Center (CPC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) has resumed Add Health restricted-use data dissemination and contract administration. CPC now oversees the Add Health restricted-use data agreements that are currently in place between data users’ institutions and Data Sharing and Demographic Research at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), University of Michigan. To apply for restricted-use data, please download the contract application and return to the .

As a result of the above changes in Add Health restricted-use data dissemination, Add Health Restricted-use Data Agreements with ICPSR will be transferred to CPC on July 1, 2014. Your data use agreement will remain in effect until its current end-date but administration of the agreement will move from ICPSR to CPC.

Change in application procedures for contracts to use Add Health restricted-use data

Effective May 2, 2014, the Data Sharing for Demographic Research (DSDR) project at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) will no longer accept applications for new restricted-use data contracts (agreements).

Beginning May 5, 2014, the Carolina Population Center will manage all restricted-use data contracts. Please see  here for instructions about applying for restricted-use data.

Add Health Data Users Seminar: April 21

This month’s speaker is Christine Gray, a doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She will discuss her Add Health research, “Throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Comparing two approaches to handling implausible values of change in body size”, on Monday, April 21, from 12PM to 1PM in CPC East 405B/C.

Add Health Data Users Seminar: Individual and Community-Level Correlates of Cigarette-Smoking Trajectories from Age 13 to 32 in a U.S. Population-Based Sample

Bring your brown bag lunch and join us for the monthly Add Health Data Users Seminar.  This month’s speaker is Dr. Bernard F. Fuemmeler, Associate Professor of Community and Family Medicine, Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, and Psychology and Neuroscience at the Duke University Medical Center.  Dr. Fuemmeler will discuss his recent Add Health publication, “Individual and Community-Level Correlates of Cigarette-Smoking Trajectories from Age 13 to 32 in a U.S. Population-Based Sample”, on Monday, March 24, from 12pm to 1pm in CPC East 405B/C.

Add Health Study: Like a virgin (mother)

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill observed the apparent occurrence of virgin pregnancy and birth. The research team of Amy H. Herring, Samantha M. Attard, Penny Gordon-Larsen, and Carolyn T. Halpern, with the assistance of Reverend William H. Joyner, analyzed self-reports of pregnancy and sexual initiation. They found that 36 young women who consistently reported having never had sexual intercourse also reported giving birth during the same period. Such “virgin births” were associated with signing chastity pledges and absent or poor parental communication about sex and birth control.

Read the Reuters story here:  Claims of virgin births in U.S. near 1 percent: study (released on December 17, 2013 by Sharon Begley).

Excerpt:  “Of those who said they became pregnant as virgins, 31 percent also said they had signed chastity pledges; 15 percent of nonvirgins who became pregnant said they had signed such pledges, in which a girl vows not to have sex until she marries.

The 45 self-described virgins who reported having become pregnant and the 36 who gave birth were also more likely than nonvirgins to say their parents never or rarely talked to them about sex and birth control. About 28 percent of the “virgin” mothers’ parents (who were also interviewed) indicated they didn’t have enough knowledge to discuss sex and contraception with their daughters, compared to 5 percent of the parents of girls who became pregnant and said they had had intercourse.

The ostensibly chaste mothers were also less likely to know how to use condoms, according to the report. UNC biostatistician Amy Herring and public health expert Carolyn Halpern led the group.”

Amy H. Herring is a Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Department of Biostatistics in the Gillings School of Global Public Health.  Samantha M. Attard is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Carolina Population Center. Penny Gordon-Larsen is a Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Department of Nutrition in the Gillings School of Global Public Health and School of Medicine. William H. Joyner is a reverend at The Chapel of the Cross. Carolyn T. Halpern is a Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Department of Maternal and Child Health in the Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Scholarly source:  Herring AH, Attard SM, Gordon-Larsen P, Joyner WH, and Halpern CT. Like a virgin (mother): analysis of data from a longitudinal, US population representative sample survey. BMJ 2013;347. Article available online.

Add Health Study: The effects of bedtime and sleep duration on academic and emotional outcomes

 

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, researchers from the University of California Berkeley have discovered a connection between adolescent bedtime and young adult academic performance and emotional distress.  The research team of Lauren D. Asarnow, Eleanor McGlinchey, and Allison G. Harvey found associations between late school year bedtime in adolescence and educational outcomes and emotional distress in young adulthood, and late summer bedtime in adolescence and emotional distress in young adulthood. 

Read the Time story here:  Is Your Teen a Night Owl? That Could Explain His Poor Grades (released on November 14, 2013 by Francine Russo). 

Excerpt:  “The study by University of California Berkeley researchers, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, compared how the different sleep habits of 2700 teenagers, aged 13 to 18, affected their academic and emotional development. They found that teens who stayed up later than 11:30 pm on school nights — which included 30% of the study subjects — fared worse than early-to-bed kids, and that these consequences lingered six to eight years later, even into college.

Younger students, aged 14-16, suffered both academically and emotionally, says the study’s lead author, Lauren Asarnow, a doctoral student in clinical psychology at UC Berkeley. They had worse cumulative GPA’s at graduation and more emotional distress, as measured by questionnaires post-graduation. The GPAs of the 16-18-year-olds didn’t suffer as much, possibly because they were more used to being sleep-deprived. However, they were more emotionally troubled than their early rising counterparts in college and beyond. They were more likely to report they were ‘sad,’ ‘down,’ or ‘blue,’ and said they cried frequently, or showed other symptoms of depression. ‘It is really important,’ Asarnow says, ‘to get our teens to bed earlier and to start young.’”

Allison G. Harvey is a Professor at the University of California Berkeley’s Department of Psychology. Lauren D. Asarnow is a doctoral student at the University of California Berkeley’s Department of Psychology. Eleanor McGlinchey is affiliated with the University of California Berkeley. 

Scholarly source:  Asarnow LD, M.A., McGlinchey E, Ph.D., and Harvey AG, Ph.D. The effects of bedtime and sleep duration on academic and emotional outcomes in a nationally representative sample of adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health. In Press. Article available online.

Add Health Study: The High Price of Debt

 

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, researchers from Northwestern University and McGill University have discovered a connection between household financial debt and poor physical and mental health.  The research team of Elizabeth Sweet, Arijit Nandi, Emma K. Adam, and Thomas W. McDade found that young adults aged 24-32 with high debt (individuals would remain in debt even after liquidating all their assets) are more likely to have higher diastolic blood pressure and lower self-reported mental and physical health. 

Read the HuffPost Healthy Living story here:  Debt Linked with High Blood Pressure, Poor Health Among Young Adults: Study (released on August 19, 2013). 

Excerpt:  “’You wouldn’t necessarily expect to see associations between debt and physical health in people who are so young,’ study researcher Elizabeth Sweet, assistant professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said in a statement. ‘We need to be aware of this association and understand it better. Our study is just a first peek at how debt may impact physical health.’”

Elizabeth Sweet, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Feinberg School of Medicine’s Department of Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois.  Arijit Nandi, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupation Health and the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.  Emma K. Adam, Ph.D., is a Professor of Education and Social Policy at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy in Evanston, Illinois.  Thomas W. McDade, Ph.D., is a Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research in Evanston, Illinois.

Scholarly source:  Sweet E, Nandi A, Adam EK, and McDade TW. The high price of debt: household financial debt and its impact on mental and physical health. Social Science & Medicine 2013;91:94-100. Article available online.

Genetic Sensitivity to Peer Behaviors: 5HTTLPR, Smoking and Alcohol Consumption

Authors:
Jonathan Daw, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
Michael Shanahan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Kathleen Mullan Harris, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Andrew Smolen, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
Brett Haberstick, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
Jason D. Boardman, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

Published in:

Journal of Health and Social Behavior, vol. 54 no. 1 (March 2013), p. 92-108

Abstract:

We investigate whether the serotonin transporter–linked polymorphic region (5HTTLPR), a gene associated with environmental sensitivity, moderates the association between smoking and drinking patterns at adolescents’ schools and their corresponding risk for smoking and drinking themselves. Drawing on the school-based design of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health in conjunction with molecular genetic data for roughly 15,000 respondents (including over 2,000 sibling pairs), we show that adolescents smoke more cigarettes and consume more alcohol when attending schools with elevated rates of tobacco and alcohol use. More important, an individual’s susceptibility to school-level patterns of smoking or drinking is conditional on the number of short alleles he or she has in 5HTTLPR. Overall, the findings demonstrate the utility of the differential susceptibility framework for medical sociology by suggesting that health behaviors reflect interactions between genetic factors and the prevalence of these behaviors in a person’s context.

View or download complete article at SAGE journals.

Add Health Study: Do Sleep-Deprived Adolescents Make Less Healthy Food Choices?

© Budda | Dreamstime Stock Photos and Stock Free Images

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, researchers who presented their findings at the annual SLEEP 2013 conference have discovered a connection between adolescent sleep patterns and dietary habits. The research team of Lauren Hale, Eric Reither, Patrick Krueger, and Paul Peppard found that teens who slept less than seven hours per night were more likely to consume fast food and less likely to consume fruits and vegetables, when compared to teens who slept more than seven or eight hours per night. This association between sleep and nutrition adds to the body of sleep research that has already demonstrated an association between short sleep duration and high body mass index in children and adolescents.

Read the HuffPost Healthy Living story here: Sleep-Deprived Teens Skimp on Produce, Eat More Unhealthy Food: Study (released on June 26, 2013).

Excerpt: “’[N]ot only do sleep teens on average eat more food that’s bad for them, they also eat less food that is good for them,’ study researcher Lauren Hale . . . said in a statement. ‘While we already know that sleep duration is associated with a range of health consequences, this study speaks to some of the mechanisms, i.e., nutrition and decision making, through which health outcomes are affected.’”

Lauren Hale is an Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University School of Medicine in Stony Brook, New York. Eric N. Reither is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. Patrick Krueger is an Assistant Professor in the departments of Health and Behavioral Sciences and Sociology at the University of Colorado at Denver in Denver, Colorado. Paul E. Peppard is an Assistant Professor of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Madison, Wisconsin.

Scholarly source: Krueger AK, Ph.D., Reither E, Ph.D., Peppard PE, Ph.D., Krueger PM, and Hale L, Ph.D. Do sleep-deprived adolescents make less healthy food choices? Proceedings of the annual SLEEP Conference; 2013; Baltimore, MD. (2013). Abstract available online.

Add Health Study: The Impact of Parental Incarceration on the Physical and Mental Health of Young Adults

 

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have discovered some of the long-term negative physical and mental health effects of parental incarceration on children.  Parental incarceration was associated with numerous health problems in young adulthood, including depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, cholesterol, asthma, migraines, HIV/AIDS, and fair/poor health.  Paternal incarceration was associated with increased likelihood of eight mental and physical health problems, while maternal incarceration was associated with increased likelihood of depression.

Read the DailyRx story here:  When Mom or Dad is in Prison (by Tara Haelle, released on March 17, 2013).

Excerpt:  “Having a parent in prison can mean hardships for the entire family. But those challenges may not go away when the parent is released. There may be long-term consequences for the kids.

A recent study found that children are more likely to have physical and mental health problems as adults if their parents had been in prison.

The risk was higher for mental health issues than for physical health issues among children of incarcerated parents.

The researchers said other studies suggest that ‘underlying mechanisms that link parental incarceration history to poor outcomes in offspring may include the lack of safe, stable, nurturing relationships and exposure to violence.’

More study is necessary to understand the possible explanations for the link more thoroughly.”

Rosalyn D. Lee is a Behavioral Scientist in the Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.  Xiangming Fang is a Professor of Economics and Director of the International Center for Applied Economics and Policy in the College of Economics and Management at China Agricultural University in Beijing, China.  Xiangming Fang was a Senior Health Economist with the Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Feijun Luo is an economist at the Division of Analysis, Research, and Practice Integration, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.

Scholarly source:  Rosalyn D. Lee, Ph.D., M.P.H., M.A., Xiangming Fang, Ph.D., and Feijun Luo, Ph.D. (2013). The Impact of Parental Incarceration on the Physical and Mental Health of Young Adults. Pediatrics (published online March 18, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.2012-0627