Social Disparities, Stress, & Health

Add Health and Biomarkers
A team of C2S researchers is investigating the impact of socioeconomic status, social relationships, and neighborhood quality on biomarkers of health collected as part of the fourth wave of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, also known as Add Health. Anthropologist Thomas McDade and developmental psychobiologist Emma Adam, the project’s lead investigators, helped design the biomarker protocols for the Add Health study, which includes a nationally representative sample of approximately 20,000 U.S. adolescents. The five-year project is the most comprehensive investigation to date of how social stressors influence adolescent physical and mental health. It is examining how stress can lead to health disparities and affect adult health outcomes. Additional C2S faculty members collaborating on the project include developmental psychologist P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale and social psychologist Thomas D. Cook.

Laboratory for Human Biology Research
McDade directs the Laboratory for Human Biology Research at Northwestern, which also serves as home to C2S’ biomarker core. The laboratory works to refine methods for assaying biomarkers in a drop of blood collected on filter paper from a single finger prick. This method is helping to revolutionize how information can be collected in field-based settings to investigate physiological functions and health. Collecting the samples is relatively painless and noninvasive; samples do not have to be centrifuged, separated, or immediately frozen; and multiple assays can be performed from a single drop of whole blood. Some major longitudinal studies such as Add Health, the Mexican Retirement Survey, Health and Retirement Study, and Panel Study of Income Dynamics have begun using this technique to measure blood samples for evidence of health and physiological development, for example, examining markers of immune function and cardiovascular disease risk. McDade is Weinberg College Board of Visitors Research and Teaching Professor.

Acculturation and Risk-Taking
First-generation Latino and Asian immigrant youth initially exhibit less risky health behaviors than U.S.-born youth, yet this “protective effect” disappears or reverses as their acculturation increases. Collaborating with Bonnie Halpern-Felsher at the University of California, San Francisco, Brown is exploring the cultural and emotional mediators of the “acculturation gradient” in risk-taking in two California high schools. Recently, Brown developed and administered a survey instrument to assess the relationship between race-ethnicity, acculturation, and risk-taking behavior in a nationally representative and multiethnic sample of 600 U.S. youth. Initial analyses indicate that large cultural differences in the perceived chances of family and community shame mediate group differences in risk-taking behaviors.

Health Disparities and Child Development
Phase II of the Community Child Health Network started in spring 2008 at five U.S. sites. The Illinois site, Community Action for Child Health Equity (CACHE), is a partnership between Northshore University Health System and the Lake County Health Department’s community health centers. CACHE explores how community, family, and individual influences interact with biological influences, resulting in disparities in perinatal health outcomes and infant and early childhood mortality and morbidity. Its theoretical model and research design emphasize the potential impact of social and economic environments on physiological stress and health in mothers and fathers during the pregnancy and the interpregnancy period. Pediatrician Madeleine Shalowitz is co-principal investigator, and several C2S and IPR faculty—developmental psychologists Emma Adam and P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, pediatrician Craig Garfield, anthropologists Christopher Kuzawa and Thomas McDade, and statistician Bruce Spencer—are involved.

National Children’s Study
Pediatrician Jane Holl leads the Chicago site of the National Children’s Study, which is recruiting and following 2,000 children in DuPage, Will, and Cook counties. It is part of the largest study of child health and well-being ever conducted in the United States and will eventually include more than 100,000 children from 107 U.S. sites. The study is assessing a wide range of environmental and genetic factors on pregnant women, children, and adults. Its goal is to prevent and treat some of the nation’s most serious health problems, including autism, birth defects, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Combining analyses of blood, urine, and hair with field observations, study researchers hope to examine how factors like food intake, air and water quality, neighborhood safety, and quality of medical care affect participants. Researchers also plan to look at children’s possible exposure to chemicals from materials used to construct their homes and schools.

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