Upcoming Webinars

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 …

ONLINE VERSION OUT NOW! This handbook synthesizes and analyzes the growing knowledge base on life course health development (LCHD) from the prenatal period through emerging adulthood, with implications for clinical practice and public health. It presents LCHD as an innovative field with a sound theoretical framework for understanding wellness and disease from a lifespan perspective, replacing previous medical, biopsychosocial, and early genomic models of health. Interdisciplinary chapters discuss major health concerns (diabetes, obesity), important less-studied conditions (hearing, kidney health), and large-scale issues (nutrition, adversity) from a lifespan viewpoint. In addition, chapters address methodological approaches and challenges by analyzing existing measures, studies, and surveys. The book concludes with the editors’ research …

Growing evidence indicates that no single factor—but a system of intertwined causes—explains why America’s health is poorer than the health of other wealthy countries and why health inequities persist despite our efforts. Teasing apart the relationships between these many causes to find solutions has proven extraordinarily difficult. But now researchers are uncovering groundbreaking insights using computer-based systems science tools to simulate how these determinants come together to produce levels of population health and disparities and test new solutions. The culmination of over five years of work by experts from a more than a dozen disciplines, this book represents a bold step forward in identifying why some populations are healthy and …

This webinar – part of LCRN’s series on Using Existing Data to Examine Life Course Health Development – features Margaret L. Kern, PhD.   Dr. Kern is a senior lecturer at the Centre for Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education in Australia. Originally trained in social, personality, and developmental psychology, Dr. Kern received her undergraduate degree in psychology from Arizona State University, a Masters and PhD in social/personality psychology from the University of California, Riverside, and postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania. She has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles and chapters, and was recently selected as an early career rising star by the Association for …

Abstract: Numerous studies have followed people across significant portions of their lives. Secondary analyses with these studies offer opportunities to study life trajectories across diverse samples. To aid integrative efforts, we introduce The Anatomy ofDevelopmental Predictors of Healthy Lives Study (TADPOHLS), a data base that categorizes items and constructs from 14 prospective longitudinal studies that followed participants from adolescence into adulthood. To classify items and measures, we created an extensive typology that provides a common language for categorizing study concepts. We illustrate the utility of the data base by examining adolescent perseverance and optimism as predictors of physical health outcomes across six studies. Adolescent perseverance and optimism were related to …

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, part of the LCRN’s series based on the Handbook of Life Course Health Development, features Amanda Geller, PhD, presenting on the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) of nearly 5,000 children born in large US cities between 1998 and 2000, roughly three-quarters of whom were born to unmarried parents. The FFCWS consists of parent interviews at birth and ages 1, 3 and 5, plus in-home assessments of children and home environments at ages 3 and 5.   Amanda Geller is a Clinical Associate Professor of Sociology at New York University. Her research examines the interactions between criminal justice policy and socioeconomic disadvantage, and their joint effects on urban …

This webinar – the third in the LCRN’s series on Using Existing Data to Examine Life Course Health Development – features Stephen Buka, Sc.D.   Dr. Buka was at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) for 20 years in the Departments of Maternal Child Health and Epidemiology, and currently holds an appointment as an Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at HSPH. He is Professor and Chair of Epidemiology at Brown University, and also directs Brown’s Center for Population Health and Clinical Epidemiology and the Center for the Study of Human Development. Dr. Buka is an expert in the measurement of the key obstetric events and their effect on adult neuropsychiatric conditions …