Upcoming Webinars

If you had just one wish for the study of human development, what would it be? How would it advance the field? And what would it take for your vision to be realized? This was the charge given to 28 scholars who come from different disciplines and fields, and who study different periods of the life course. In this article, Richard A. Settersten, Jr. and Megan McClelland, the issue’s editors, provide an overview of the contributors’ wishes, organized into seven thematic areas: (1) conceptual advances; (2) systems, levels, and contexts; (3) individual differences; (4) methodological advances; (5) harnessing science for human welfare and social justice; (6) underexplored life course dynamics; …

This webinar – the ninth in the LCRN’s series on The State of Life Course Health Development Research: Past, Present and Future – features Neal Halfon, MD, MPH.   Neal is the director of the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities. He is also a professor of pediatrics in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, of health services in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and policy studies in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Additional positions include: board member of Children Youth and Families at the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2001-2006; Principal Investigator for the L.A. and Ventura Study Center …

This diagram is a summary depiction of the core principles of the Life Course Health Development model.   For a high-resolution PDF of this diagram and permission for public use, please email Ericka Tullis, LCRN Project Manager, at ETullis@mednet.ucla.edu.   Click on the diagram to expand.

In 2003 when Dr. Halfon and I published a commentary in this journal calling for a reconceptualization of racial–ethnic disparities in birth outcomes from a life-course perspective [1], few people in maternal and child health (MCH) were talking about life course. While certainly not new, it was hailed in an accompanying editorial as ‘‘a start in a new paradigm’’ in MCH [2]. The past decade has witnessed major advancements in the development of the life course theory and its application to MCH research, practice, and policy. In this issue, Halfon et al. [3] summarized new advances in the theory of life course health development (‘‘LCHD 2.0’’), while other articles provide …

Developmental systems theory provides powerful tools for predicting complex, dynamic interactions among biological and environmental processes in human behavior and health. This groundbreaking handbook provides a roadmap for integrating key concepts of developmental systems theory (such as self-organization, reciprocal dynamic interaction, and probabilistic epigenesis) and simulation models (connectionist and agent-based models) with advanced dynamic modeling approaches for testing these theories and models. Premier developmental science scholars present innovations in research design, measurement, and analysis that offer new means of generating evidence-based decisions to optimize the course of health and positive functioning across the life span. Topics include epigenetic development and evolution; the relationship between neural systems growth and psychological development; …

Lifecourse-informed models of health fundamentally challenge simple biomedical models, introducing new ways of thinking about how diseases develop. This paper considers the broad implications of lifecourse theory for the maternal and child health (MCH) research agenda. The Lifecourse Health Development model provides an organizing framework for a synthesis of the existing literature on lifecourse health and identification of gaps in knowledge. Priority areas identified for MCH research in order to close these knowledge gaps include: epigenetic mechanisms and their potential mutability; peri-conception as a critical and sensitive period for environmental exposures; maternal health prior to pregnancy; the role of the placenta as an important regulator of the intra-uterine environment; and ways to …

During the latter half of the twentieth century, an explosion of research elucidated a growing number of causes of disease and contributors to health. Biopsychosocial models that accounted for the wide range of factors influencing health began to replace outmoded and overly simplified biomedical models of disease causation. More recently, models of lifecourse health development (LCHD) have synthesized research from biological, behavioral and social science disciplines, defined health development as a dynamic process that begins before conception and continues throughout the lifespan, and paved the way for the creation of novel strategies aimed at optimization of individual and population health trajectories. As rapid advances in epigenetics and biological systems research …

This webinar–the third in the LCRN’s ongoing series on The State of Life Course Health Development Research: Past, Present and Future–features David Barker, MD, PhD, FRS, Physician and Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Southampton, U.K., and Professor in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Oregon Health and Science University.   Nearly 20 years ago, Dr. Barker showed for the first time that people who had low birthweight are at greater risk of developing coronary heart disease. In 1995, the British Medical Journal named this the “Barker Hypothesis.” It is now widely accepted. In 2010, Time Magazine called it the “New Science.” In 2003, Dr. Barker joined …

This webinar – the first in the LCRN’s ongoing series on The State of Life Course Health Development Research: Past, Present and Future – features Clyde Hertzman, formerly the Director of the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) and the Canada Research Chair in Population Health and Human Development and Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at UBC.   Dr. Hertzman was a fellow of the Experience-based Brain and Biological Development Programme and the Successful Societies Programs of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIfAR). He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. He held an honorary appointment …

In this article, I make the case for using an integrative approach to health, broadly defined as social, emotional, mental and physical well-being; for studying health among the young as an important marker for future health and well-being across the life course; and for understanding health disparities among the young as both causes and consequences of social stratification. An integrative approach bridges biomedical sciences with social and behavioral sciences by understanding the linkages between social, behavioral, psychological and biological factors in health. It is furthermore vital that integration occur in all steps of the research process: in theory, design, data collection and analysis. I use the National Longitudinal Study of …