Variation in Skin Red and Yellow Undertone: Reliability of Ratings and Relevance for Perceived Social Experiences.

It is well established that skin lightness-darkness is associated with social outcomes, but little is known regarding the social salience of skin undertones (redness and yellowness). Our study addresses two related research questions on this topic: first, we ask whether red and yellow undertones are consistently perceived by observers; second, we ask whether red and yellow undertones are associated with expectations of discrimination across a range of social settings. We address these questions using novel survey data in which skin lightness-darkness and undertones are captured using CIELAB measurements and a two-dimensional categorical skin color scale.

Bedtime Schedules and Sleep Regulation among Children of Incarcerated Parents.

Objectives: To investigate variation by parental incarceration history in the bedtime schedules set for elementary-age children and whether sleep was effectively regulated.

Study Design: We ran multivariate regression models estimating the relationship between parental incarceration and 6 measures of bedtime schedules and sleep regulation. Our sample included 9-year-olds in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n = 3246), a survey of children born in large US cities between 1998 and 2000 that has an oversample of unmarried mothers.

Parental Incarceration and Child Overweight: Results From a Sample of Disadvantaged Children in the United States.

Objectives: Rates of childhood obesity and parental incarceration have been increasing in the United States since the 1970s. We examined whether parental incarceration was associated with child overweight at age 9 and whether that association differed by which parent was incarcerated.

Methods: We ran cross-sectional logistic regression models predicting the likelihood of a child being overweight, conditional on whether the child's mother, father, or both parents had ever been incarcerated.

Resolved Parental Infertility and Children's Educational Achievement.

Although difficulty conceiving a child has long been a major medical and social preoccupation, it has not been considered as a predictor of long-term outcomes in children ultimately conceived. This is consistent with a broader gap in knowledge regarding the consequences of parental health for educational performance in offspring. Here we address that omission, asking how resolved parental infertility relates to children's academic achievement.

(How) Does Obesity Harm Academic Performance? Stratification at the Intersection of Race, Sex, and Body Size in Elementary and High School.

In this study I hypothesize a larger penalty of obesity on teacher-assessed academic performance for white girls in English, where femininity is privileged, than in math, where stereotypical femininity is perceived to be a detriment. This pattern of associations would be expected if obesity largely influences academic performance through social pathways such as discrimination and stigma. In the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (~age 9) and the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 (~age 18), I find obesity to be associated with a penalty on academic performance among white girls in English but not in math, while no association is found in either subject for white boys or for black students net of controls.

Skin color, sex, and educational attainment in the post-civil rights era.

We assess the relationship between skin color and educational attainment for native-born non-Hispanic Black and White men and women, using data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. CARDIA is a medical cohort study with twenty years of social background data and a continuous measure of skin color, recorded as the percent of light reflected off skin. For Black men and women, we find a one-standard-deviation increase in skin lightness to be associated with a quarter-year increase in educational attainment.