Publications by authors named "J P Shonkoff"
Background: Although systemic inequities, broadly defined, are associated with health disparities in adults, there is a dearth of research linking contextual measures of exclusionary policies or prejudicial attitudes to health impairments in children, particularly among Latino populations. In this study, we examined a composite measure of systemic inequities in relation to the cooccurrence of multiple health problems in Latino children in the United States.
Methods: Participants included 17 855 Latino children aged 3 to 17 years from the National Survey of Children's Health (2016-2020).
Article Synopsis
- Research indicates a connection between the neighborhood opportunity and health outcomes, specifically focusing on children's mortality risk and their caregivers over an 11-year period.
- A study involving over 1 million children found that those living in low opportunity neighborhoods had significantly higher mortality risks, both for themselves and for their caregivers.
- The findings highlight the negative effects of neighborhood inequalities on child well-being and suggest that addressing these disparities through targeted policies could improve health outcomes for children and their families.
Background: Although investigations have begun to differentiate biological and neurobiological responses to a variety of adversities, studies considering both endocrine and immune function in the same datasets are limited.
Methods: Associations between proximal (family functioning, caregiver depression, and anxiety) and distal (SES-D; socioeconomic disadvantage) early-life adversities with salivary inflammatory biomarkers (IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, and TNF-α) and hair HPA markers (cortisol, cortisone, and dehydroepiandrosterone) were examined in two samples of young U.S.
As the science of adversity and resilience advances, and public awareness of the health consequences of stress grows, primary care providers are being increasingly asked to address the effects of adverse experiences on child wellbeing. Given limited tools for assessing these effects early in life, the authors explore how enhanced capacity to measure stress activation directly in young children could transform the role and scope of pediatric practice. When employed within a trusted relationship between caregivers and clinicians, selective use of biological measures of stress responses would help address the documented limitations of rating scales of adverse childhood experiences as a primary indicator of individual risk and strengthen the ability to focus on variation in intervention needs, assess their effectiveness, and guide ongoing management.
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