Racial Disparities in Blood Pressure Trajectories of Preterm Children: The Role of Family and Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status.

Racial disparities in cardiovascular disease mortality in the United States remain substantial. However, the childhood roots of these disparities are not well understood. In the current study, we examined racial differences in blood pressure trajectories across early childhood in a sample of African-American and European-American low-birth-weight preterm infants.

School readiness and later achievement.

Using 6 longitudinal data sets, the authors estimate links between three key elements of school readiness--school-entry academic, attention, and socioemotional skills--and later school reading and math achievement. In an effort to isolate the effects of these school-entry skills, the authors ensured that most of their regression models control for cognitive, attention, and socioemotional skills measured prior to school entry, as well as a host of family background measures. Across all 6 studies, the strongest predictors of later achievement are school-entry math, reading, and attention skills.

Cumulative, human capital, and psychological risk in the context of early intervention: links with IQ at ages 3, 5, and 8.

This article examines the effects of risks for a sample of low birth weight children (2,001 to 2,500 g and family income-to-needs at 250% of the poverty threshold or less; n = 228) using data from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP, an experiment testing the efficacy of early intervention). Cognitive test scores (IQ) are assessed at 3, 5, and 8 years of age. Links with risks at each age point are examined using three different models-cumulative, human capital, and psychological risks.

Maternal coping strategies and emotional distress: results of an early intervention program for low birth weight young children.

Several questions were examined with Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP) data (N = 843). Are effects of intervention services found for maternal emotional distress and coping strategies, and are these effects different for different groups of mothers? Do maternal distress, coping, and life events moderate (or mediate) the intervention effects reported earlier for children's test scores and behavior problems (IHDP, 1990)? The intervention reduced maternal distress, especially for women with less than a high school education. Maternal distress did not moderate or mediate the influence of the intervention on child outcomes.

Effects of combining public assistance and employment on mothers and their young children.

One goal of recent welfare reform legislation is to move welfare-dependent mothers with young children into the paid labor force. However, prior to the new legislation, many welfare-dependent women were already engaged in employment activities. In this paper we examine whether child or maternal well-being is influenced by a mother's strategy of combining work and public assistance receipt in the late 1980s.