Childhood Adversity and Telomere Length.

Exposure to adversity during childhood and adolescence is associated with numerous health conditions in adulthood; telomere shortening may be a mechanism through which adversity contributes to poor outcomes. We studied three areas of adversity (parent relational instability, child household instability, and financial instability) occurring during three epochs across childhood and adolescence and their associations with telomere length during adolescence. Data were obtained from the first wave of a longitudinal cohort study of youth aged 11-17 and their primary caregiver.

Paws on the Street: Neighborhood-Level Concentration of Households with Dogs and Urban Crime.

The formative work of Jane Jacobs underscores the combination of "eyes on the street" and trust between residents in deterring crime. Nevertheless, little research has assessed the effects of residential street monitoring on crime due partly to a lack of data measuring this process. We argue that neighborhood-level rates of households with dogs captures part of the residential street monitoring process core to Jacobs' hypotheses and test whether this measure is inversely associated with property and violent crime rates.

Everyday perceptions of safety and racial disparities in hair cortisol concentration.

Objective: Black-White disparities in physiological stress during adolescence are increasingly evident but remain incompletely understood. We examine the role of real-time perceptions of safety in the context of everyday routines to gain insight into the sources of observed adolescent racial differences in chronic stress as measured by hair cortisol concentration (HCC).

Method: We combined social survey, ecological momentary assessment (EMA), and hair cortisol data on 690 Black and White youth ages 11-17 from wave 1 of the Adolescent Health and Development in Context (AHDC) study to investigate racial differences in physiological stress.

Geographic Isolation, Compelled Mobility, and Everyday Exposure to Neighborhood Racial Composition Among Urban Youth.

Foundational urban social theories view heterogeneity of exposure to spatial and social contexts as essential aspects of the urban experience. In contrast, contemporary neighborhood research emphasizes the isolation of city dwellers - particularly residents of racially segregated neighborhoods. Using geospatial data on a sample of youth from the 2014-16 Columbus, OH-based study, we explore the extent to which the neighborhood locations of everyday activities vary with respect to residential racial composition.

Demographic and health predictors of telomere length during adolescence.

Telomere length (TL) is proposed to play a mechanistic role in how the exposome affects health outcomes. Little is known about TL during adolescence, a developmental period during which precursors of adult-onset health problems often emerge. We examined health and demographic sources of variation in TL in 899 youth aged 11-17.

Is educational mobility harmful for health?

"Mobility effects" research to date provides mixed evidence about the health consequences of social mobility and pays limited attention to race differences in mobility effects. To address this gap in the literature, this study explores the association between downward mobility and upward mobility with health and how these associations vary between Black people and White people. Diagonal reference models are used to estimate the effects of intergenerational educational mobility on self-rated health and mortality using data from the U.

Neighborhoods, Activity Spaces, and the Span of Adolescent Exposures.

Since the inception of urban sociology, the "neighborhood" has served as the dominant context thought to capture developmentally significant youth experiences beyond the home. Yet no large-scale study has examined patterns of exposure to the most commonly used operationalization of neighborhood - the census tract - among urban youth. Using smartphone GPS data from the Adolescent Health and Development in Context study (N=1405), we estimate the amount of time youth spend in residential neighborhoods and consider explanations for variation in neighborhood exposure.

Racial and Economic Adversity Differences in Stress Markers and Immune Function Among Urban Adolescents.

Background: Exposure to racism and associated adversities, such as poverty, is hypothesized to contribute to racial inequities in health via stress and immune pathways. Furthermore, the effects of adversity may be more salient during sensitive developmental periods. Our study examined racial differences in stress and immune biomarkers during adolescence and the effects of exposure to economic adversity at distinct developmental time periods and cumulatively in accounting for potential racial differences.

Exposure to police-related deaths and physiological stress among urban black youth.

Background: Emerging evidence indicates that exposure to police-related deaths is associated with negative health and wellbeing outcomes among black people. Yet, no study to date has directly examined the biological consequences of exposure to police-related deaths for urban black youth.

Methods And Findings: We employ unique data from the 2014-16 Adolescent Health and Development in Context (AHDC) study - a representative sample of youth ages 11 to 17 residing in the Columbus, OH area.

Ventricular Assist Device Technology and Black-White Disparities on the Heart Transplant Wait List.

Introduction: Heart transplantation is the definitive treatment for end-stage heart failure. Left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) are a continually improving technology that extends life for some candidates on the heart transplant waiting list. Our objective is to compare Black-White differences in LVAD implantation and heart transplant outcomes during a period of technological innovation when the pulsatile flow LVAD was largely replaced by the continuous flow LVAD between 1999-2014.