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We are pleased to announce that on-line registration for the ninth Add Health Users Conference is now open!

The conference will take place on July 22-23, 2010 on the campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.  The conference is being co-sponsored by the Office of Behavior and Social Sciences Research, NIH; the Office of Research on Women’s Health, NIH; the Add Health Study at the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and the Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch/Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH.

Registration for the conference is free of charge and is open to all researchers interested in learning more about the Add Health study and its data.  To access the on-line registration form or for more information about the conference, please visit the 2010 Add Health Users Conference homepage.

Please be advised that on-line conference registration will close on Monday, June 28.  After this date, researchers who wish to attend the conference will need to register on-site the first day of the conference.  On-site registration will begin at 8:00 am on Thursday, July 22 at the Natcher Building and Conference Center on the NIH campus.

We hope to see you this summer!

A new study examining the impact of mentoring on teens’ educational attainment was published in Sociology of Education and featured in ScienceDaily.  The study was conducted by Lance Erickson of Brigham Young University, Steve McDonald of North Carolina State University, and Glen H. Elder, Jr. of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Data from Waves I and III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent showed that having a teacher as a mentor was particularly powerful at promoting achievement among disadvantages youth.

“In the statistical analysis, mentors proved pivotal in whether students make the jump to college. For example, students whose parents do not even have a high school degree are normally 35 percent likely to enroll in college.  According to the study, the rate jumps to 66 percent when the youth considers one of his teachers to be a personal mentor.”

Erickson noted that the “mentors weren’t necessarily doing anything extraordinary, just being involved and treating the young person as an important human being.” (November 5, 2009. Benefit of a Mentor: Disadvantaged Teens Twice As Likely To Attend College.  In ScienceDaily.)

To read the entire article, click here

Some media outlets may require free user registration or a subscription. Most articles are available at the URLs provided for a limited time, usually two weeks or less.

This article is based on research published as the following:

Erickson, Lance D.; McDonald, Steve; Elder Jr., Glen H. (2009). Informal Mentors and Education: Complementary or Compensatory Resources? Sociology of Education, 82(4):344-367(24).

Add Health is pleased to announce the release of the Wave IV in-home interview data. Wave IV was designed as the fourth comprehensive personal interview with the nationally-representative sample of adolescents first interviewed at Wave I in 1994 and 1995. Over 80% of original Wave I respondents participated in Wave IV data collection during 2007-2009, resulting in 15,701 completed Wave IV interviews. Add Health is now accepting requests for the Wave IV interview data from Add Health users with current restricted-use data contracts. Prospective contractual data users will be able to request the Wave IV data through an online contracting system beginning in January 2010.  For more information on how to access Add Health restricted-use data, see About Restricted-Use Contractual Data.  For more information on the Wave IV study design, visit the Add Health Wave IV design page.

In January 2010, responsibility for the dissemination of Add Health restricted-use contractual data will shift from Add Health at the Carolina Population Center to the Data Sharing for Demographic Research (DSDR) project at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). To facilitate this transition, no new restricted-use data agreements are being accepted at the present time. Initiation of new contracts will resume in January 2010 when ICPSR launches an online Add Health restricted-use data contracting and dissemination system, which will ultimately allow certified researchers to gain access to the restricted-use data more quickly and efficiently.

Add Health restricted-use data agreements that are currently in place between data users’ institutions and the University of North Carolina will remain in effect until their current end-dates. However, in assuming dissemination of Add Health restricted-use data, ICPSR will also assume responsibility for overseeing all current Add Health data use agreements.  Current contractual users who seek to renew an existing contract, add new researchers, or make changes to an approved data security plan should continue to contact Add Health as usual until December 15, 2009. After this date, changes to current contracts will be administered by ICPSR. ICPSR will be contacting Add Health contractual data users with more information on the continued administration of their agreements. 

Throughout this transition period, the Add Health website will be updated regularly to include the latest information on how to access the restricted-use data. For more information on the forthcoming online contracting system, you may also email ICPSR.

The September 10th edition of the New York Times magazine featured an in-depth article on social contagion effects in health and happiness.  The article examined evidence from several studies – including Add Health – regarding the theory that health behaviors can pass from friend to friend like contagious “viruses.”

At the heart of the discussion is recent research conducted by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler.  The pair analyzed social connections between participants in the Framingham Heart Study and found that several behaviors and conditions – including smoking, drinking, obesity, and happiness – appeared to spread from person to person.  For example, “When a Framingham resident became obese, his or her friends were 57 percent more likely to become obese, too.  Even more astonishing…was the fact that the effect did not stop there.  In fact, it appeared to skip links.”

When Christakis and Fowler repeated their analyses using Add Health data, they found the same three-degree pattern of contagion for obesity.  However, research by other Add Health investigators has called into question whether confounding effects such as homophily – the tendency of people to gravitate toward others who are like them – or shared environment are at play.

Regardless of how one judges the evidence, Christakis and Fowler’s work may suggest “a new way to think about public health.  If they’re right, public-health initiatives that merely address the affected individuals are doomed to failure.” (September 10, 2009. Are Your Friends Making You Fat? In New York Times magazine.)

To read the entire New York Times magazine article, click here

This article is based on research published as the following:

Christakis, Nicholas A. and James H. Fowler. 2007. The spread of obesity in a large social network over 32 years.  New England Journal of Medicine 26, 357(4): 370-9. 

Cohen-Cole, and Jason M. Fletcher. 2008. Detecting implausible social network effects in acne, height, and headaches: longitudinal analysis.  BMJ 337:a2533.

Fowler, James H. and Nicholas A. Christakis.  2008. Estimating peer effects on health in social networks: a response to Cohen-Cole and Fletcher; and Trogdon, Nonnemaker, and Pais. Journal of Health Economics 27(5): 1400-5. 

Some media outlets may require free user registration or a subscription. Most articles are available at the URLs provided for a limited time, usually two weeks or less.

Mark your calendars!  The ninth Add Health Users Conference will be held on July 22-23, 2010 on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD.  The meeting is being co-organized by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The conference will include both substantive and methodological sessions, with a focus on longitudinal analyses linking adolescence and adulthood and the new Wave IV data.  A call for papers will go out in early 2010.  On-line conference registration will begin in late spring.

Please check the Add Health news page frequently for updates regarding the conference.

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies released its version of the FY 2010 spending bill on July 30, 2009.  The Senate’s report on the bill, like the House report that preceded it, cites the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health as an example of a “valuable” large-scale data set worthy of continued investment.

 “The Committee urges the NICHD [Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development] to continue its support of trans-NIH behavioral and social research initiatives on disasters and health outcomes to develop more data on the consequences of natural and man-made disasters for the health of children and vulnerable groups. Further, the Committee encourages the NICHD to continue its investment in large-scale data sets, such as the New Immigrant Study and National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, because of their value and accessibility to researchers worldwide. Finally, the Committee urges the Institute to continue research on (1) how the structure and characteristics of the work environment affect child and family health and well-being and (2) how health and well-being in the early years (including before birth) affect health and well-being later in life.” (Senate Report 111-066 (2009).)

The full Senate is expected to consider the legislation in September.

For a summary of the bill, click here

For the full Senate report, click here

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill researcher Mike Shanahan’s study on social capital, educational continuation, and dopamine receptor gene DRD2 appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The study uses data from Add Health.

“Young men are less likely to attend college if they carry a common form of a gene associated with poor impulse control, a new study has found. But the study also found that a strong environment–a high-quality high school and heavily involved parents–can counteract that genetic risk. For boys with this gene who grow up in supportive environments, there was no drop in college attendance.

“The study, which was written by three sociologists and a behavioral geneticist, examined genes and survey data from more than 2,500 people who have participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The paper was published in December as part of the American Journal of Sociology’s 2008 supplement.” (January 9, 2009. A gene pushes some men away from college, but social support pulls them in. In The Chronicle of Higher Education.)

To read the entire article, click here.

Some media outlets may require free user registration or a subscription. Most articles are available at the URLs provided for a limited time, usually two weeks or less.

This article is based on research published as the following:

Shanahan, Michael J., Stephen Vaisey, Lance D. Erickson, and Andrew Smolen. 2008. Environmental Contingencies and Genetic Propensities: Social Capital, Educational Continuation, and Dopamine Receptor Gene DRD2. American Journal of Sociology 114, no. S1 (2008): S260-86.

Research on the impact of physical attractiveness, grooming, and personality on high school students’ grade-point averages appeared in the July 26th edition of the New York Times.  The research was conducted by Michael T. French and colleagues from the University of Miami using Add Health data. 

“In their analysis, recently published in the journal Labour Economics, they reported that of the three traits, grooming had the most significant correlation to boys’ grades, and personality to girls’.  When all three characteristics were considered together, boys experienced a statistically significant grade premium for good grooming and a penalty for being slovenly. For girls, pleasant personality had the most impact on grades, and to a lesser extent good grooming.”

“’We say this very guardedly, because we don’t have direct evidence of teacher bias,’ Dr. French says, ‘but what it suggests is that teachers are giving preferential treatment’ in grading.” (July 26, 2009. Comb your hair (boys) and smile (girls). In New York Times.)

To read the entire article, click here

Some media outlets may require free user registration or a subscription. Most articles are available at the URLs provided for a limited time, usually two weeks or less.

This article is based on research published as the following:

French, Michael T., Philip K. Robins, Jenny F. Homer, and Lauren M. Tapsell. 2009. Effects of physical attractiveness, personality, and grooming on academic performance in high school. Labour Economics 16, no. 4: 373-382. DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2009.01.001

Research on the development of obesity among dating, cohabitating, and married couples, by University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill nutritionists Natalie The and Penny Gordon-Larsen, was featured in TIME magazine.  The research utilized data from the Add Health Partner Sample, a subset of 1,507 romantic partners of respondents interviewed during Wave III of the study.

“The study, published in the July issue of Obesity, set out to determine how romantic relationships affect the tell-no-lies numbers on the scale.  Researchers tracked changes over a handful of years in the weight and relationship status of 6,949 individuals, and their findings don’t bode well for commitment.  Not only are married people more likely to become obese than those who are just dating, but young people who move in with a boyfriend or girlfriend tend to pack on the pounds too.

“’With women, we saw incremental risk after one year.  The longer she lived with a romantic partner, the more likely she was to keep putting on weight,’ says Gordon-Larsen.” (July 6, 2009. First comes love, then comes obesity? In TIME.)

To read the full article, click here.

Some media outlets may require free user registration or a subscription. Most articles are available at the URLs provided for a limited time, usually two weeks or less.

For information on accessing the Partner Sample data, send an e-mail to: addhealth@unc.edu

This article is based on research published as the following:

The, Natalie S., and Penny Gordon-Larsen. 2009. Entry Into Romantic Partnership Is Associated With Obesity. Obesity 17, no. 7: 1441-1447.