Loucks is using a 50-year follow-up of the New England Family Study to explore how conditions during pregnancy and early life may impact epigenetic alterations and aging processes that could subsequently appear in midlife as atherosclerosis, type 2 diabetes, adiposity and cognitive decline. During this project, Loucks will assess the aging processes in 500 of the Collaborative Perinatal Project (CPP) participants born in 1959-1966 to explore the life course effects on aging.
Aizer applies economic models of bargaining and econometric techniques to estimate the causes and consequences of domestic violence. Aizer shows that there is a negative causal relationship between violence during pregnancy and newborn health, exploiting for identification variation in the enforcement of laws against domestic violence. Her findings show that a decrease in the male-female wage gap can improve the health of women via reductions in violence.
High rates of incarceration are in part a consequence of persistent inequality and may have long-term impacts on economic and social well-being for individuals and communities. Loury recently focused on the rise in rates of incarceration, particularly among African Americans. In his recent book, Race, Incarceration and American Values: The Tanner Lectures, he argues that the disproportionately black and brown prison populations are the victims of civil-rights opponents who successfully moved the country's race dialogue to a seemingly race-neutral concern over crime.
PSTC researchers Short and Logan join Principal Investigator Buka to provide the Providence County, RI and Bristol County, MA components of the National Children’s Survey. The study will examine the effects of environmental influences on the health and development of more than 100,000 children across the U.S., following them from before birth until age 21. The goal of the study is to improve the health and well-being of children.
McGarvey examines the role of genetic variation in influencing the extent of obesity in Samoa. In-depth dietary, physical activity, socio-demographic and village environmental information is collected from more than 3,000 adult Samoans residing throughout the developing country of Samoa. Genome scan methods will be used to identify across the whole genome susceptibility loci for obesity in this population.
Chay is engaged in research that empirically investigates the consequences of segregation (and desegregation) in the American South for health outcomes and human capital formation. He finds that the 1946 Hospital Act that led to new hospitals for whites improved health among whites only. The introduction of the Civil Rights Act, which helped provide access to hospitals for blacks, led to substantial relative reductions in black infant mortality.
McGarvey leds an interdisciplinary behavioral intervention clinical trial to improve type 2 diabetes patient outcomes by expanding community health worker outreach. The community health workers will expand the dietary and physical activity education of patients and their families; provide reminders and active follow-up for clinic appointments.
Foster, along with a former student, evaluates how race-based preferences and geographical distance affect nursing home sorting. He finds that the resulting segregation exacerbates racial disparities in the quality of nursing-home care. In addition to peer-reviewed academic papers, this project resulted in a repository of long-term care data and state policies, and a Web site providing access to policies, provider data, and a quality-based map of LTC providers by location.
Schooling choice can lead to persistent disparities if individuals in different groups have different levels of access to good schools or make different types of decisions about which schools to attend. This project investigates impacts on student outcomes, competitiveness and racial segregation as a result of the implementation of a new public-school choice system that was first approved in December 2001 by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. In this study, Hastings looks at the consequences of winning one’s first choice school in a choice lottery.
