Using Longitudinal Surveillance of Unemployment Claims During Public Health Emergencies to Provide Timely and Granular Data on the Social Determinants of Health.

Objective: Employment is a well-documented social determinant of physical and mental health and can be used to determine who is disproportionately affected by public health emergencies. We examined trends in unemployment overall and by gender, by race or ethnic group, and by their interaction for 2 public health emergencies (the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 California wildfires).

Methods: We obtained summary data files on the number of initial unemployment insurance (IUI) claims made in all 58 California counties from January 2018 through December 2021.

Association of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 With Body Mass Trajectories of Children in Low-Income Families.

Importance: Implemented in 2012, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA) increased nutritional requirements of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) to reverse the potential role of the NSLP in childhood obesity.

Objective: To evaluate whether associations between the free or reduced-price NSLP and body mass growth differed after implementation of the HHFKA.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cohort study used data from 2 nationally representative cohorts of US kindergarteners sampled in 1998 to 1999 and 2010 to 2011 and followed up for 6 years, through grade 5, in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K:1999, in 2003-2004) and Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 (ECLS-K:2011, in 2015-2016).

Disparities in Prostate Cancer Survival According to Neighborhood Archetypes, A Population-Based Study.

Objectives: To examine survival among men with prostate cancer according to neighborhood archetypes. As an advancement beyond measures of neighborhood socioeconomic status (nSES) or specific measures of the neighborhood environment, archetypes consider interactions among many social and built environment attributes.

Methods: Neighborhood archetypes for California census tracts in the year 2000 were previously developed through latent class analysis of 39 measures of social and built environment attributes.

A Simple Method for Simulating Dementia Onset and Death within an Existing Demographic Model.

Background: Dementia is a common disease that has an impact on both the affected individual and family members who provide caregiving. Simulation models can assist in setting policy that anticipates public health needs by predicting the demand for and availability of care.

Objective: We developed a relatively simple method for simulating the onset of dementia that can be used in combination with an existing microsimulation model.

Neighborhood archetypes and breast cancer survival in California.

Purpose: Previous studies on neighborhoods and breast cancer survival examined neighborhood variables as unidimensional measures (e.g. walkability or deprivation) individually and thus cannot inform how the multitude of highly correlated neighborhood domains interact to impact breast cancer survival.

Secular Trends in Dementia and Cognitive Impairment of U.S. Rural and Urban Older Adults.

Introduction: This is a nationally representative study of rural-urban disparities in the prevalence of probable dementia and cognitive impairment without dementia (CIND).

Methods: Data on non-institutionalized U.S.

The Hispanic Paradox: Race/Ethnicity and Nativity, Immigrant Enclave Residence and Cognitive Impairment Among Older US Adults.

Hispanics, and particularly foreign-born Mexican Americans, have been shown to fare better across a range of health outcomes than might be expected given the generally higher levels of socioeconomic disadvantage in this population, a phenomena termed the "Hispanic Paradox". Previous research on social disparities in cognitive aging, however, has been unable to address both race/ethnicity and nativity (REN) in a nationally-representative sample of US adults leaving unanswered questions about potentially "paradoxical" advantages of Mexican ethnic-origins and the role of nativity, socioeconomic status (SES), and enclave residence. We employ biennial assessments of cognitive functioning to study prevalent and incident cognitive impairment (CI) within the three largest US REN groups: US-born non-Hispanic whites (US-NHW), US-born non-Hispanic blacks (US-NHB), US-born Mexican Americans (US-MA), and foreign-born Mexican Americans (FB-MA).

Neighborhood age structure and cognitive function in a nationally-representative sample of older adults in the U.S.

Recent evidence suggests that living in a neighborhood with a greater percentage of older adults is associated with better individual health, including lower depression, better self-rated health, and a decreased risk of overall mortality. However, much of the work to date suffers from four limitations. First, none of the U.

Constructing a Time-Invariant Measure of the Socio-economic Status of U.S. Census Tracts.

Contextual research on time and place requires a consistent measurement instrument for neighborhood conditions in order to make unbiased inferences about neighborhood change. We develop such a time-invariant measure of neighborhood socio-economic status (NSES) using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses fit to census data at the tract level from the 1990 and 2000 U.S.

Evaluating Linearly Interpolated Intercensal Estimates of Demographic and Socioeconomic Characteristics of U.S. Counties and Census Tracts 2001-2009.

The American Community Survey (ACS) multiyear estimation program has greatly advanced opportunities for studying change in the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of U.S. communities.

Functioning, Forgetting, or Failing Health: Which Factors Are Associated With a Community-Based Move Among Older Adults?

Objective: To examine whether the health and functioning of middle-aged and older adults are associated with an increased likelihood of community-based moves.

Method: Biennial data from adults aged 51 and older in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and discrete-time survival models were used to assess the likelihood of community-based moves from 2000 to 2010 as a function of 11 measures of health and functioning.

Results: Respondents diagnosed with heart disease, stroke, hypertension, lung disease, and psychiatric problems were more likely to move during the study period than those with no such diagnosis.

Epidemiological Paradox or Immigrant Vulnerability? Obesity Among Young Children of Immigrants.

According to the "immigrant epidemiological paradox," immigrants and their children enjoy health advantages over their U.S.-born peers--advantages that diminish with greater acculturation.

Evaluation of bias in estimates of early childhood obesity from parent-reported heights and weights.

Objectives: We evaluated bias in estimated obesity prevalence owing to error in parental reporting. We also evaluated bias mitigation through application of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's biologically implausible value (BIV) cutoffs.

Methods: We simulated obesity prevalence of children aged 2 to 5 years in 2 panel surveys after counterfactually substituting parameters estimated from 1999-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data for prevalence of extreme height and weight and for proportions obese in extreme height or weight categories.

Multiple Imputation For Combined-Survey Estimation With Incomplete Regressors In One But Not Both Surveys.

Within-survey multiple imputation (MI) methods are adapted to pooled-survey regression estimation where one survey has more regressors, but typically fewer observations, than the other. This adaptation is achieved through: (1) larger numbers of imputations to compensate for the higher fraction of missing values; (2) model-fit statistics to check the assumption that the two surveys sample from a common universe; and (3) specificying the analysis model completely from variables present in the survey with the larger set of regressors, thereby excluding variables never jointly observed. In contrast to the typical within-survey MI context, cross-survey missingness is monotonic and easily satisfies the Missing At Random (MAR) assumption needed for unbiased MI.

Early Adult Obesity and U.S. Women's Lifetime Childbearing Experiences.

Literature from multiple disciplines suggests that women who are obese during early adulthood may accumulate social and physiological impediments to childbearing across their reproductive lives. This led the authors to investigate whether obese young women have different lifetime childbearing experiences than leaner peers by analyzing data from 1,658 female participants in the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Study sample members were nulliparous women ages 20 - 25 in 1982.

Parent-reported height and weight as sources of bias in survey estimates of childhood obesity.

Parental reporting of height and weight was evaluated for US children aged 2-13 years. The prevalence of obesity (defined as a body mass index value (calculated as weight (kg)/height (m)(2)) in the 95th percentile or higher) and its height and weight components were compared in child supplements of 2 nationally representative surveys: the 1996-2008 Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort (NLSY79-Child) and the 1997 Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID-CDS). Sociodemographic differences in parent reporting error were analyzed.

Prenatal, perinatal, early life, and sociodemographic factors underlying racial differences in the likelihood of high body mass index in early childhood.

Objectives: We investigated early childhood disparities in high body mass index (BMI) between Black and White US children.

Methods: We compared differences in Black and White children's prevalence of sociodemographic, prenatal, perinatal, and early life risk and protective factors; fit logistic regression models predicting high BMI (≥ 95th percentile) at age 4 to 5 years to 2 nationally representative samples followed from birth; and performed separate and pooled-survey estimations of these models.

Results: After adjustment for sample design-related variables, models predicting high BMI in the 2 samples were statistically indistinguishable.

Is the intergenerational transmission of smoking from mother to child mediated by children's behavior problems?

Introduction: A previous paper used latent class analysis to assign individuals to 1 of 4 adolescent/young adult smoking trajectory classes and then established an association between maternal smoking before, during, and after pregnancy and these classes. In this paper, we examine one possible pathway for this relationship: that maternal smoking during pregnancy may set off a behavioral trajectory which increases the likelihood of problem behaviors generally, of which smoking is one manifestation.

Methods: We used the Behavior Problems Index measure from age 8 through age 12 as a potential mediator.

The multidimensional relationship between early adult body weight and women's childbearing experiences.

This study has three primary goals that make an important contribution to the literature on body weight and childbearing experiences among United States' women. It sheds light on the physiological and social nature of this relationship by examining whether the consequences of early adult weight for lifetime childbearing are shaped by historical social context, women's social characteristics, and their ability to marry. We analyze data from two female cohorts who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY79).

Enhancing Public Health Emergency Preparedness for Special Needs Populations: A Toolkit for State and Local Planning and Response.

Experiences from recent emergencies, such as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, have shown that current emergency preparedness plans are inadequate to address the unique issues of special needs populations. This article shares details about a toolkit meant to assist state and local public health agencies improve their emergency preparedness activities. It distills the most relevant strategies, practices, and resources from a variety of sources, including peer-reviewed research, government reports, the trade literature, and public health leaders, to identify priority populations and critical strategies.

Intergenerational relationships between the smoking patterns of a population-representative sample of US mothers and the smoking trajectories of their children.

Objectives: We assessed intergenerational transmission of smoking in mother-child dyads.

Methods: We identified classes of youth smoking trajectories using mixture latent trajectory analyses with data from the Children and Young Adults of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (n = 6349). We regressed class membership on prenatal and postnatal exposure to maternal smoking, including social and behavioral variables, to control for selection.

Using geographic information systems to match local health needs with public health services and programs.

Local health departments (LHDs) play an important role in ensuring essential public health services. Geographic information system (GIS) technology offers a promising means for LHDs to identify geographic gaps between areas of need and the reach of public health services. We examined how large LHDs could better inform planning and investments by using GIS-based methodologies to align community needs and health outcomes with public health programs.

Neighborhood archetypes for population health research: is there no place like home?

This study presents a new, latent archetype approach for studying place in population health. Latent class analysis is used to show how the number, defining attributes, and change/stability of neighborhood archetypes can be characterized and tested for statistical significance. The approach is demonstrated using data on contextual determinants of health for US neighborhoods defined by census tracts in 1990 and 2000.

Neighbourhood socioeconomic status and biological 'wear and tear' in a nationally representative sample of US adults.

Objective: To assess whether neighbourhood socioeconomic status (NSES) is independently associated with disparities in biological 'wear and tear' measured by allostatic load in a nationally representative sample of US adults.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Population-based US survey, the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III), merged with US census data describing respondents' neighbourhoods.