Local crime and substance use disorders: A comparison of midlife adults in the 1990s and 2000s.

This study investigated how sociopolitical changes in the United States between the 1990s and 2000s may explain the increase in substance use disorders and reduced longevity in more recent cohorts of US midlife adults. The 2008 recession which drastically increased unemployment rates across the country may have had negative implications for downstream contextual and individual processes, including both local crime rates and substance use disorders. The Midlife in the United States Survey cohort (1995;  = 6148; 20-75 years) and the MIDUS Refresher cohort (2011;  = 3543; 23-76 years) reported on substance use disorders.

Parental imprisonment, delinquent behavior, and BMI gain in a U.S. nationally representative cohort study of adolescents and adults ages 12-32.

Children who experience parental imprisonment report greater mental and physical health adversities in adolescence and adulthood relative to comparable individuals whose parents did not serve time in prison. Research has linked BMI gain with parental imprisonment among females, but other studies have shown null or negative associations between parental imprisonment and weight increases for their offspring. Using longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, this study attempts to resolve these differential findings by examining the interrelationship between delinquent behavior and BMI associated with parental imprisonment as individuals progress from adolescence into adulthood (ages 12-32).

Does crime trigger genetic risk for type 2 diabetes in young adults? A G x E interaction study using national data.

Background: Living in neighborhoods perceived as disordered exacerbates genetic risk for type 2 diabetes (T2D) among older adults. It is unknown whether this gene-neighborhood interaction extends to younger adults. The present study aims to investigate whether crime, an objectively measured indicator of neighborhood disorder, triggers genetic risk for T2D among younger adults, and whether this hypothesized triggering occurs through exposure to obesity.

Cognition and Diabetes: Examining Sex Differences Using a Longitudinal Sample of Older Adults.

This study aims to investigate sex-based differences in the diabetes status and cognition relationship using a representative sample of older Americans. Using a sample of 19,190 females and 15,580 males from the Health and Retirement Study, we conduct mixed-effects linear regression analyses to examine sex differences in the association between diabetes and cognition over a 20-year follow-up period among older adults in the United States. Females experience slightly steeper declines in cognition that are further exacerbated by diabetes.

Exploring Rural-Urban Differences in Polygenic Associations for Health among Older Adults in the United States.

This paper contributes to research on health disparities among rural and urban residents by considering differences in the magnitude of genetic associations for physical health, mental health, and health behaviors across the two settings. Previous research has shown reduced genetic associations in rural compared to urban settings but none have utilized current genome-wide polygenic scores and none have focused on older adults. Using a sample of 14,994 adults from the 1992 to 2016 waves of the Health and Retirement Study our results suggest genetic associations for BMI (p<.

Evaluating the Continued Integration of Genetics into Medical Sociology.

The 2010 special issue of , titled "Fifty Years of Medical Sociology," defined the contours of the medical sociological perspective. We use this as a backdrop to outline and assess the continued integration of genetics into medical sociology research. We contend that the explosion of genetic and epigenetic data in population health data sources has made the medical sociological perspective increasingly relevant to researchers outside of sociology, including public health, epidemiology, and quantitative genetics.

Cognition in context: Pathways and compound risk in a sample of US non-Hispanic whites.

The population of individuals with cognitive impairment and dementia is growing rapidly, necessitating etiological investigation. It is clear that individual differences in cognition later in life have both genetic and multi-level environmental correlates. Despite significant recent progress in cellular and molecular research, the exact mechanisms linking genes, brains, and cognition remain elusive.

Utilizing genome wide data to highlight the social behavioral pathways to health: The case of obesity and cardiovascular health among older adults.

We use genome-wide data from the 1992-2016 Health and Retirement Study (n = 12,090) to characterize obesity among older adults as genetically or socially oriented. To illustrate the significance of this approach for social epidemiological research, we deem those with the lowest genetic risk for obesity to be socially-behaviorally obese and obesity among those with the highest polygenic risk is characterized as genetically oriented. We then examine the association between obesity and four indicators of cardiovascular health (type-2 diabetes, hypertension, heart problems, and stroke) among those with low, average, and high genetic risk.

A mutation associated with stress resistance in mice is associated with human grip strength and mortality.

Hand grip strength (GS) is a valid and reliable predictor of future morbidity and mortality and is considered a useful indicator of aging. In this paper, we use results from the genetic analysis in animal studies to evaluate associations for GS, frailty, and subsequent mortality among humans. Specifically, we use data from the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) to investigate the association between three polymorphisms in a candidate frailty gene ( and GS.

Perceived neighborhood social cohesion and cardiometabolic risk: a gene × environment study.

People living in socially cohesive neighborhoods generally have better health. We extend this research by evaluating the hypothesis that perceived neighborhood cohesion may influence health by attenuating genetic liability for cardiometabolic risk factors. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study ( = 6615; mean age 69.

Genetic associations with mathematics tracking and persistence in secondary school.

Maximizing the flow of students through the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) pipeline is important to promoting human capital development and reducing economic inequality. A critical juncture in the STEM pipeline is the highly cumulative sequence of secondary school math courses. Students from disadvantaged schools are less likely to complete advanced math courses.

Hearing Impairment, Household Composition, Marital Status, and Mortality Among U.S. Adults.

Objectives: This study investigates associations between hearing impairment, household composition, marital status, and all-cause mortality for a representative sample of United States adults aged 40 and older (N = 198,902).

Methods: We use data from 11 waves of the National Health Interview Survey (2004-2014) linked to prospective mortality status through 2015. The risk of mortality over the follow-up period is estimated using Cox proportional hazard models.

Mortality and Obesity Among U.S. Older Adults: The Role of Polygenic Risk.

Objectives: To examine the relationship between obesity and mortality as a function of polygenic risk for obesity among older U.S. adults.

Implications of gendered behaviour and contexts for social mobility in the USA: a nationally representative observational study.

Background: We constructed measures of an individual's gendered behaviour and their gendered environment to investigate the salience of gender norms during adolescence for social mobility during the next decade of life.

Methods: In this nationally representative observational study, we collected individual-level data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), which enrolled a cohort of nationally representative school students aged 11-19 years from across the USA and followed them up for 14 years (ie, to age 25-33 years). We characterised gendered behaviour for adolescents in a performative sense via self-reports of behaviours and beliefs.

Association of Adolescent Sport Participation With Cognition and Depressive Symptoms in Early Adulthood.

Background: Recent studies have associated sport-related concussion with depression and impaired cognitive ability later in life in former professional football players. However, population studies with two 1950s-era cohorts did not find an association between high school football participation and impaired cognition or depressive symptoms in late adulthood.

Purpose/hypothesis: This study assessed whether actual/intended participation in contact sports during adolescence had an adverse effect on participants' cognition or depressive symptoms in early adulthood.

Education, Smoking, and Cohort Change: Forwarding a Multidimensional Theory of the Environmental Moderation of Genetic Effects.

We introduce a genetic correlation by environment interaction model [(rG)xE] which allows for social environmental moderation of the genetic relationship between two traits. To empirically demonstrate the significance of the (rG)xE perspective, we use genome wide information from respondents of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; n = 8,181; birth years 1920-1959) and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health; n = 4,347; birth years 1974-1983) to examine whether the genetic correlation (rG) between education and smoking has increased over historical time. Genetic correlation estimates (rG = -0.

Genes Related to Education Predict Frailty Among Older Adults in the United States.

Objective: This article expands on research that links education and frailty among older adults by considering the role of genes associated with education.

Method: Data come from a sample of 7,064 non-Hispanic, white adults participating in the 2004-2012 waves of the Health and Retirement Study. Frailty was measured with two indices: (a) The Frailty Index which corresponds to a deficit accumulation model; and (b) The Paulson-Lichtenberg Frailty Index which corresponds to the biological syndrome/phenotype model.

Author Correction: Testing the key assumption of heritability estimates based on genome-wide genetic relatedness.

In the original paper, we used the variable "URBRUR08," from the 2008 survey wave as a measure of childhood urbanicity. Upon further investigation we realized that this variable actually measured Beale urban-rural code during the respondent's adulthood.  Thus, we reran our analysis of the pseudo-heritability of childhood urbanicity using the variable.

Geographic Clustering of Polygenic Scores at Different Stages of the Life Course.

We interrogate state-level clustering of polygenic scores at different points in the life course and variation in the association of mean polygenic scores in a respondent's state of birth with corresponding phenotypes. The polygenic scores for height and smoking show the most state-level clustering (2 to 4 percent) with relatively little clustering observed for the other scores. However, even the small amounts of observed clustering are potentially meaningful.

Differential vulnerability to neighbourhood disorder: a gene×environment interaction study.

Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is preventable, it is increasing in prevalence and it is a major risk factor for morbidity and mortality. Importantly, residents of neighbourhoods with high levels of disorder are more likely to develop T2D than those living in less disordered neighbourhoods and neighbourhood disorder may exacerbate genetic risk for T2D.

Method: We use genetic, self-reported neighbourhood, and health data from the Health and Retirement Study.