Seminar Series

The REWARD study asks whether and how exposure to cumulative contextual (dis)advantage shapes health inequities via epigenetic mechanisms. REWARD draws on data from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin (SHOW), a uniquely rich dataset that combines social and health survey measures with residential histories spanning up to five decades, spatio-temporally linked neighborhood conditions, and epigenetic clocks constructed based on DNA methylation in whole blood. We develop and compare approaches to assessing cumulative (dis)advantage exposure and examine patterns of exposure across cohorts, racial groups, and geographic locations in Wisconsin, a state that encompasses both racially segregated urban centers and rural regions with primarily white and rapidly aging populations. We then consider the associations between cumulative exposures to contextual (dis)advantage and epigenetic markers of accelerated biological aging. We find that relative to models using single-point-in-time exposure metrics, models incorporating cumulative measures show a stronger association between exposure to neighborhood disadvantage and accelerated aging.

While evidence suggests a durable relationship between redlining and population health, we currently lack an empirical account of how this historical act of racialized violence produced contemporary inequities. In this paper, we use a mediation framework to evaluate how redlining grades influenced later life expectancy and the degree to which contemporary racial disparities in life expectancy between Black working-class neighborhoods and White professional-class neighborhoods can be explained by past Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) mapping. Life expectancy gaps between differently graded tracts are driven by economic isolation and disparate property valuation which developed within these areas in subsequent decades. Still, only a small percent of a total disparity between contemporary Black and White neighborhoods is explained by HOLC grades. We discuss the role of HOLC maps in analyses of structural racism and health, positioning them as only one feature of a larger public–private project conflating race with financial risk. Policy implications include not only targeting resources to formerly redlined neighborhoods but also the larger project of dismantling racist theories of value that are deeply embedded in the political economy of place.

Grit, hardiness, resilience, and mindfulness are attributes associated with performance under, and mitigation of the effects of, high-stress environments over time. Studying these attributes often requires simulating high-stress in a controlled setting. Over the past four years, our multi-institutional research team has studied the contributions of these psychological characteristics (and a limited number of biomarkers) to performance and completion of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training (BUD/S), one of the most high stress environments possible outside of combat. Exposure to cold, sleep deprivation, and intense physical activity are leveraged to understand the ability of students to withstand the high levels of stress that produces an attrition rate of 65-85%. Here, we discuss the overall goals and challenges of the project, and we briefly present results from three published papers investigating: (1) the measurement of grit, hardiness, and resilience among the BUD/S trainee population; (2) the relationship between resilience, mindfulness, and successful completion of BUD/S; and (3) patterns of change in grit, hardiness, and resilience over the course of training.

This paper aims to unite three distinct literatures in considering how siblings may exacerbate life course disparities. First, recent calls to expand the one-parent one-offspring model of intergenerational inequality have been met primarily by extending analyses vertically, to a three-generation model that incorporates grandparents. To more fully understand how complex intra-familial dynamics contribute to the transmission of (dis)advantage, however, a nascent literature suggests that we must incorporate siblings into the theoretical and analytic framework. Second, Torche (2015, p. 346) laments that existing literature reveals “very little about causal processes and mechanisms for the persistence of advantage” and urges researchers to start “moving beyond these specific factors to assess how institutional contexts shape intergenerational opportunity”. A robust collection of research illuminates the consequences of criminal justice contact for youth, but has developed largely independently of the scholarship on intergenerational transmission. And third, a spirited literature in cultural sociology investigates children’s own expectations and aspirations for the future—yet little contemporary work scrutinizes parents’ expectations and aspirations for their children. Therefore, in this work in progress, I expand the familial transmission of inequality model to consider how sibling criminal justice system impact children both directly and indirectly (via their influence on parent expectations and aspirations). Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), my initial results suggest fairly large deleterious effects of sibling troubles on parent expectations and aspirations, and these effects seem to be concentrated primarily among focal children who have higher levels of behavioral issues.

How many calories do you burn each day? How does our daily energy expenditure change with age and exercise? In this talk, we’ll discuss new research investigating human metabolism. Dr. Pontzer will present work with hunter-gatherers and other small-scale subsistence populations around the globe, exploring the way our bodies use energy in different settings and across the life course. We will discuss how our evolved metabolic physiology shapes our lives and our health today.

Jail leasing is the practice by which states enter into contractual agreements with local governments and rent beds in jails to house individuals who would normally be confined in state-operated prisons. In this paper, I examine differences in mortality risk for individuals experiencing incarceration in jails as the result of a leasing agreement compared to the broader jail and prison populations. I do so by describing the deaths of individuals from the jail, prison and leasing population in the US between 2013 and 2019, and calculating the crude and standardized mortality rates for these populations. I find a lower mortality risk for the leasing population compared to the prison population and the general jail population, largely driven by the fact that individuals subjected to leasing agreements are simultaneously insulated from the long sentences experienced by the prison population and from the deaths of despair experienced by the unconvicted jail population.

Mass incarceration is a term that describes a historically, comparatively, and demographically unique situation in the United States. It is historically unique because the incarceration rate—especially the prison incarceration rate—grew fourfold in just 30 years, after a long period of relative stability. It is comparatively unique because the U.S. leads the world in incarcerating its citizens. And it is demographically unique because the burden of incarceration is borne disproportionately by men of color. The objective of this study is to document the ways that the experience of incarceration reverberates across many life course domains: employment, education, marriage, fertility, mortality, and health.

The geroscience hypothesis posits that common biological mechanisms of aging drive susceptibility of aged individuals to functional decline, multi-morbidity, and death. This seminar will review how we are creating new translational frameworks to test the geroscience hypothesis. Specific examples will include evaluating biomarkers and interventions on cellular senescence, developing aging outcomes and feasible biomarker strategies for clinical trials testing pharmacologic and lifestyle interventions, and re-envisioning existing translational resources to accelerate the pace of geroscience.

The combination of extra-carceral surveillance by the US criminal legal system and the US immigration system may have unique consequences for Latina women in the United States. Rates of community supervision by the criminal legal system (through probation or parole) have grown disproportionately among women and Latinx people in recent decades, and rates of community supervision by the US immigration system (through mechanisms like Alternative to Detention programs)—which have always targeted Latinas—have grown exponentially since the mid-2000s. These forms of community supervision may have distinct and significant consequences for the health and health care of Latinas in the US as they face varying concerns about their immigration status and criminal legal status.