IPR - Institute for Policy Research - Northwestern University

Social Disparities and Health
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.
< Laboratory for Culture and Health
C2S opened a second laboratory in its new administrative
and laboratory space, the Laboratory for Culture
and Health (LCH), directed by
anthropologist Ryan Brown. LCH
will investigate how culture affects
the relationships among emotion,
decision making, and biological
reactivity and health. In collaborative
work with Margaret Kemeny
at the University of California,
San Francisco, Brown finds that
anger plays a protective role against
pathological biological reactivity
to social threat, while shame was
associated with slower recovery of
Ryan Brown studies how multiple biological systems (neuroendocrine
and cardiovascular)
culture affects decision
making, emotion, and to baseline levels. The laboratory’s
biological reactivity. current research efforts will focus on
developing ecologically valid social
stimuli for use across different cultural groups and constructing
field techniques for large-scale studies.
< Cultural Processes and Population Health
Brown seeks to measure cultural processes in large
epidemiological studies with relevance for population
health. Much of this work involves the Great Smoky
Mountains Study, a large-scale longitudinal study of
families and health in North Carolina’s Appalachian
Mountains that Brown has been involved with since
2000. He uses a mixed-methods approach—qualitative
and quantitative—with this sample, yielding insights
on topics ranging from the developmental determinants
of life goals and priorities to the role of masculinity and
social change in generating risk for crystal methamphetamine
use. Brown also collaborates with demographers
and economists on how historical processes and complex
social events influence life expectancy.
< 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 coprincipal
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.
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