Upcoming Webinars

This webinar, part of the LCRN’s series based on the Handbook of Life Course Health Development, features David L. Wood, MD, MPH–Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at East Tennessee State University’s Quillen College of Medicine.   In this webinar, Dr. Wood will be giving a presentation based on his chapter from the Handbook of Life Course Health Development entitled Emerging Adulthood as a Critical Stage in the Life Course.   Webinar recording available here    

This webinar, part of the LCRN’s series based on the Handbook of Life Course Health Development, features Neal Halfon, MD, MPH – director of the Life Course Research Network (LCRN) – and Christopher B. Forrest, MD, PhD – pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.     In this webinar, Drs. Halfon and Forrest will present the 7 principles that comprise their life course health development framework, including the empirical evidence that underlies each principle and the implications for future research. By shining a light on how early experience conditions future biological responses and influences health development pathways, the presenters hope to encourage theory building and testing, inspire innovative transdisciplinary research, and lead to future discussions that can help …

This webinar, part of the LCRN’s series based on the Handbook of Life Course Health Development, features Marco Del Giudice, PhD from the University of New Mexico.   Dr. Del Giudice is Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of New Mexico. His main research area is the evolutionary study of human development across the life span, with a focus on individual and sex differences and their neurobiological basis. He has published more than 60 papers and book chapters on a wide range of topics, from the biology of developmental plasticity to the classification of mental disorders in an evolutionary framework. With his collaborators he has advanced the …

This Research Brief is based on one of 26 chapters published in the Handbook of Life Course Health Development.   Access the Research Brief here: LCHD Summary Briefs Ch. 2

This is one of 26 chapters published in the Handbook of Life Course Health Development.   Abstract: Life course health science research is “connecting the dots” between child health development, adult patterns of premature morbidity and mortality, and more integrated notions of healthy aging. However, there are still many outstanding questions about the relationship between early experiences and lifelong health and well-being, as well as a growing need to understand how emerging knowledge can be applied to the development of evidence-based practice and policy that can reduce risks, minimize exposures, and optimize lifelong health. In 2010, the Maternal and Child Health Life Course Research Network (LCRN) initiated an inclusive research agenda-setting …

This is one of 26 chapters published in the Handbook of Life Course Health Development.   Abstract: The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) is a nationally representative birth cohort study of approximately 4900 children born in large US cities between 1998 and 2000. Nonmarital childbearing increased dramatically in the second half of the twentieth century, raising questions about the capabilities of unmarried parents, the nature of parental relationships, and their implications for child health development and wellbeing. The FFCWS has become a leading source of information about unmarried parents and their children and about child health development more generally. The study contains biological and social indicators of children’s cognitive …

This is one of 26 chapters published in the Handbook of Life Course Health Development.   Abstract: The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is a nationally representative, longitudinal study of families in the USA that began in 1968. It is the longest-running household panel survey in the world. As of 2015, a total of 39 waves of data have been collected over 47 years. The study currently covers nearly 10,000 families and 25,000 individuals and has achieved reinterview response rates of 96–98% in virtually every wave. PSID interviews collect information on a wide range of economic, demographic, social, and health topics. The study has a genealogical design, and adult children of …

This is one of 26 chapters published in the Handbook of Life Course Health Development.   Abstract: The National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY) are a set of three separate US cohorts. Two of the cohorts, the NLSY79 and the NLSY97, are nationally representative, while the third, the NLSY79 Child and Young Adult cohort, follows the offspring born to female NLSY79 respondents. The NLSY79 began data collection in 1979 from an initial sample of 12,686 young men and women born between 1957 and 1964; the NLSY97 cohort, an initial group of 8984 young people born between 1980 and 1984, was first interviewed in 1997. Both the NLSY79 and NLSY97 cohorts have …

This is one of 26 chapters published in the Handbook of Life Course Health Development.   Abstract: The central focus of life course epidemiology and life course approaches to health development is on the complex processes underlying the occurrence and accrual of risks at multiple levels and their impact on the developing individual. Reflecting the multilevel and integrated features of human health development that are at the centre of life course health-development (LCHD) principles, study designs seek better understanding of social, familial, and genetic contributions to the aetiology of health conditions, exploring the timing and interactions of different experiences and risks in relationship to the natural course of disorders in different …

This is one of 26 chapters published in the Handbook of Life Course Health Development.   Abstract: The complexity of life course health development research demands rigorous methodology and analytics. Advanced techniques, improved estimation algorithms, and user-accessible software/hardware developments signal what I see as a paradigm shift in how life science research will be conducted now and in the future. Although techniques such as structural equation modeling (SEM), multilevel modeling (MLM), and mixture distribution modeling have permeated the research agenda in many fields, the capability of these tools has hardly been fully utilized. The craft of life course health development methodology and analytics requires dedication, sophistication, and a knack for molding …