Highlights of 2011 - Institute for Policy Research - Northwestern ...

Child, Adolescent, AND Family Studies
reform. Using CPS data to examine the incomes of workingage
Americans from 2005 to 2009 and from 1978 to 1982,
her preliminary findings show that the risk of poverty for single
adults and single parents compared with that for married
couples has remained relatively similar across recessions.
About the Program
Neighborhoods and Health
IPR biological anthropologist Thomas McDade and IPR
developmental psychobiologist Emma Adam were part of a
team, led by economist Jens Ludwig of the University of Chicago,
that was the first to employ a randomized experimental design
to learn about the connections between neighborhood poverty
and health. The researchers studied 4,498 poor women and
children in five major U.S. cities in the Moving to Opportunity
(MTO) residential mobility program, which enrolled low-income
families with children living in distressed public housing. Families
volunteered for the experiment, and based on the results of
a random lottery, were offered the chance to use a housing
voucher subsidy to move into a lower-poverty community.
Other families were randomly assigned to a control group that
received no special assistance under the program.
Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the study
collected information on the families who had enrolled in
the program between 1994 and 1998. The research team
measured the heights and weights of MTO participants and
collected blood samples to test for diabetes. At the time of
follow-up, 17 percent of the women in the study’s control
group were morbidly obese and 20 percent had diabetes. But
low-income women who received the vouchers and moved
with their children to more affluent neighborhoods were less
likely to be extremely overweight or diabetic, revealing better
long-term health outcomes.
School Attendance and Obesity
In a Journal of Health Economics article, IPR economist Diane
Whitmore Schanzenbach and her colleagues investigate the
impact of attending school on body weight and obesity. As is
the case with academic outcomes, school exposure is related
to unobserved determinants of weight outcomes because
some families choose to have their child start school later
or earlier than others. When this factor is unaccounted for, it
appears that an additional year of school exposure results in
a greater BMI and a higher probability of being overweight or
obese. However, when the researchers compared the weight
outcomes of similar age children with one versus two years of
school exposure due to regulations on school starting age, the
significant positive effects disappear, and most point estimates
become negative, but insignificant. However, for children not
eating the school lunch, school exposure reduces the probability
of being overweight. Additional school exposure also appears to
improve weight outcomes of children for whom the transition
Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Chair
This interdisciplinary program combines the
interests of IPR faculty studying the ways in
which social programs, policies, and contexts
affect the lives of families and children from
birth to young adulthood. Drawing from the
fields of human development and social policy,
psychology, sociology, economics, and law, many
faculty share common interests with scholars in
IPR’s programs on Poverty, Race, and Inequality;
Social Disparities and Health; and Education
Policy—particularly in studying the impact of
public policies on America’s poor.
to elementary school represents a more dramatic change in
environment, such as those who spent less time in childcare
prior to kindergarten.
No Child Left Behind and Obesity
Schools facing increased pressures to produce academic outcomes
might reallocate their efforts in ways that have unintended
consequences for children’s health. For example, the
new financial pressures due to accountability rules might
induce school administrators to try to raise new funds through
outside food and beverage contracts, or schools might cut back
on recess and physical education in favor of increasing time on
tested subjects. To examine the impact of school accountability
programs, Schanzenbach and her colleagues have created a
unique panel data set of elementary schools in Arkansas that
allows them to test the impact of the federal No Child Left
Behind Act’s rules on students’ body weights. They find that
schools under pressure from the act have about a 0.5 percentage
point higher rate of students who are overweight.
A follow-up survey of principals also points to reductions in
physical activity and the use of food as a reward and source of
external funding as potential mechanisms. Understanding how
the school environment might contribute to obesity is key since
school environments are more within the control of policymakers
than the family environment.
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