Social Disparities and Health
Program

IPR’s Cells to Society (C2S): The Center on Social Disparities and Health continues to expand its scope of activities to understand how social, economic, and cultural contexts affect physical and mental health, as well as cognitive achievement, at the population level. Faculty research overlaps with other IPR program areas, including Child, Adolescent, and Family Studies; Poverty, Race, and Inequality; and Education Policy. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, a developmental psychologist, is C2S’s founding director.

Overview of Activities

Economic Strategies of Women with HIV/AIDS

Celeste Watkins-Hayes (center) is leading a first-of-its-kind study of how women from diverse racial and economic backgrounds cope with HIV/AIDS—medically, socially, and financially.

IPR sociologist and African American studies researcher Celeste Watkins-Hayes is in the midst of collecting data for her project Health, Hardship, and Renewal: A Research Study of the Economic Strategies of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (www.hhrstrategies.org). Over two years, she and her team of researchers are following 100 Chicago-area women from a variety of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds to gain a better understanding of how these women adjust their lifestyles and cope with the personal, social, and financial challenges of living with the disease. The project aims to fill some of the major holes in previous AIDS research, which has focused mostly on white gay men or on preventing the spread of infection.

Specifically, this groundbreaking, ethnographic study addresses the experiences of low-income women of color—who represent one of the fastest-growing population groups affected by the virus. It also explores
the short- and long-term effects of the disease on their families. It is supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, along with a National Science Foundation CAREER award that Watkins-Hayes received in 2009. IPR postdoctoral fellow Jean Beaman, who previously worked on the Sister-to-Sister pilot study,
is also collaborating on the project.

Changing Age Patterns in Motherhood
IPR social demographer Christine Percheski and her colleagues are examining the age at which women have their first child, starting with women around World War II (1936–45) to Generation Xers (1966–75). Like previous studies, they find a dual pattern: Some women start to have children in their late teens and early 20s, with others delaying until their early 30s. To understand what accounts for this pattern, the researchers are analyzing data from the National Survey of Family Growth and Vital Statistics.

Another project on American fertility by Percheski and Christopher Wildeman of Yale University shows that white, non-Hispanic women born between 1944 and 1964 were less likely to have a child out of wedlock before turning 30 if they went to religious services weekly and grew up with both parents. The researchers estimate that changes in childhood experiences account for 22 percent of the increase in nonmarital first births across these age cohorts, though religion was less significant for Generation Xers. The study was published in the Journal of Marriage and Family.

Bedtimes and Parents’  Work Schedules
IPR developmental psychobiologist Emma Adam, IPR graduate research assistant Cassandra Hart, and Emily Snell of MDRC examined parental work schedules and time-diary data of 5- to 18-year-olds in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a nationally representative sample.
In accounting for the differences in how long children get to sleep, the researchers find wake times, not bedtimes, matter. Thus, a child whose parent or primary caregiver starts work between 7 and 9 a.m. wakes up earlier and sleeps less overall than one whose primary caregiver does not work.

Most surprising perhaps was that those children with a stay-at-home parent slept as little as children whose parents or caregivers work full-time. The researchers tested whether this might be because stay-at-home mothers were prone to more depression than their employed peers, thus affecting their children’s sleep routines, but they did not find this to be the case. The children who slept the most were those with a primary caregiver holding a part-time job, the study shows, no matter whether the child lived in a one- or two-parent household.

Preschool Misbehavior: Normative or Risk?
IPR clinical and developmental psychologist Lauren Wakschlag has directed several large-scale initiatives to validate tools that characterize the phenotype of disruptive behavior in preschool children. Their common goal is to provide standardized methods for distinguishing between clinical problems and the normative misbehavior of early childhood. She developed and validated the Disruptive Behavior Diagnostic Observation Schedule (DB-DOS), the only direct observation method for assessing clinical patterns of disruptive behavior in young children. Her current “MAPS” study is validating the Multidimensional Assessment of Preschool Disruptive Behavior (MAP-DB) questionnaire in a demographically stratified sample of 3,700 preschoolers.

Smoking Experimentation: Can “Family Talk” Distinguish Youth at Risk?
Teen experimentation with smoking represents transient risk taking for some—and the start of a chronic habit for others. How can one distinguish between these two groups? In a study published in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, Wakschlag and her colleagues test the Family Talk About Smoking (FTAS) paradigm on a sample of 344 teens with a history of smoking experimentation. FTAS is a 10-minute, semi-structured method that uses flip cards with conversational “triggers” to jumpstart discussions on smoking-related topics between parents who smoke and their teens who are experimenting with it. Researchers directly observe and then code the conversations. The researchers find that FTAS, with its novel use of direct observations, has predictive power above and beyond that of questionnaire reports. It shows promise as a supplemental tool to define individual patterns in family communication about smoking and to identify those teens most at risk for persistent smoking.

	David Cella gives an IPR colloquium on developing standards for self-reported health status in clinical and population science.

Measuring Patient-Reported Outcomes
IPR associate David Cella, professor and founding chair of medical social sciences, continues his investigation of quality of life measurements and medical outcomes research in clinical trials and practice. As principal investigator of an NIH Roadmap Initiative to build a Patient-Reported Outcome Measurement Information System (PROMIS), he and a research team validated 11 item banks and their corresponding short forms for common patient-reported outcomes on a diverse sample of more than 21,000 people.

The researchers examined self-reported physical, mental, and social health, along with a 10-item Global Health Scale, finding them as reliable and precise as other well-validated and widely accepted “legacy” measures for evaluating new healthcare treatments. The findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. Cella’s measurement research has been transforming opportunities nationally to include the patient perspective in determining the value of healthcare.

Guidelines for Assessing Heart Disease Risk
Preventive medicine professor and IPR associate Philip Greenland was chair of a joint task force that released the 2010 guidelines for assessing cardiovascular disease risk in adults. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States, and it is estimated that eliminating it would increase life expectancy for Americans by 7 years. The experts proposed 23 guidelines based on reviews of studies between March 2008 and April 2010 to provide clinicians with an evidence-based approach to risk assessment. The American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association released the report. Greenland is Harry W. Dingman Professor and senior associate dean for clinical and translational research in the Feinberg School of Medicine.

Exercise, Weight Gain, and Health
In a widely reported study of 3,554 men and women from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study, epidemiologist and IPR associate Mercedes Carnethon and her colleagues—including lead author Arlene Hankison and Martha Daviglus, also in Feinberg—find that those who stay physically active as adults gain less weight as they age, especially women. The researchers tracked young adults starting between the ages of 18 and 30 over two decades. While almost all the participants gained weight, those who remained consistently physically active over that period took on fewer pounds overall—22 for men and 20 for women versus 28 and 33 pounds for those who exercised less. The key, the researchers note, was consistently exercising at high levels over the 20 years. In another study published in Hypertension, Carnethon and her colleagues estimate that raising the fitness level of those who are out of shape could decrease their risk for high blood pressure, and thus heart attacks, by as much as 34 percent.

Much of Emma Adam's research hones in on the stress hormone coritsol and how it relates to sleep, stress, and risk for depression.

Stress and Health Disparities
Adam and IPR anthropologist Thomas McDade continue to head a collaborative team of faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students on a five-year project to examine how stress can lead to health disparities and affect adult health. They are collecting and examining biomarkers of health from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a nationally representative sample of approximately 15,000 U.S. adolescents. The team has completed four manuscripts, investigating the effects of social relationships on overall health, of socioeconomic status on biomarkers of health, and of perceived life chances on health behaviors. Collaborating IPR faculty members include developmental psychologist Lindsay Chase-Lansdale and social psychologist Thomas D. Cook, who is Joan and Sarepta Harrison Chair in Ethics and Justice.

Stress and Teen Depression
Adolescent depression is a major health issue that affects approximately 15 to 20 percent of all U.S. adolescents at some point. In the longitudinal study Daily Experiences, Stress, and Sleep over the Transition to Adulthood, Adam and her colleagues continue to explore how stress is linked to depression and anxiety in adolescents. One recent project—with Leah Doane of Arizona State University and others—looked at the cortisol awakening response (CAR) in 230 teens, ages 16 to 18. In the CAR, levels of the stress-sensitive hormone cortisol increase dramatically 30 to 40 minutes after waking. Teens with the largest baseline measure, they find, have the highest risk of developing depression the following year.

Stress and Loneliness in Adolescents
In another investigation, Adam and Doane examine whether feelings of loneliness were related to changes in cortisol levels and to bouts of depression or chronic stress in a sample of 121 teens. For teens experiencing high levels of loneliness, they replicated a previous finding—originally found for older adults—that high levels of loneliness and sadness on a particular day predicted an increase in cortisol the following morning. This supports an earlier hypothesis by Adam and her colleagues that adverse social experiences, such as loneliness, might provide an extra energetic “boost” to help the individual meet the demands of the next day. The study also reveals a link between a particular moment of loneliness and higher levels of momentary cortisol. Results were published in Psychoneuroendocrinology.

National Children’s Study
In November 2010, the Chicago site of the of the National Children’s Study launched efforts to recruit 2,000 women who are pregnant or expect to become pregnant and represent a wide range of races, ethnicities, and socioeconomic conditions. Led by pediatrician and IPR associate Jane Holl, the study will follow the volunteers’ children from in the womb through age 21. The largest study of its kind in the United States, it will eventually include more than 100,000 children from 105 sites, 4,000 of whom will come from three counties in the greater Chicago area. The study is assessing the effects of various environmental and genetic factors on pregnant women, children, and adults. It aims to understand the underlying causes of some of the nation’s most serious health problems, including asthma, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity—and uncover new avenues for prevention and treatment.

Health Disparities and Child Development
The Community Child Health Network is a longitudinal study examining health disparities in fetal growth and preterm birth, child development, obesity, and asthma at five sites, including the Illinois site, Community Action for Child Health Equity (CACHÉ). CACHÉ explores how community, family, and individual influences interact with biological influences, resulting in disparities in perinatal health outcomes and infant and early childhood mortality and morbidity. Pediatrician and IPR associate Madeleine Shalowitz is co-principal investigator, and several IPR/C2S faculty are involved.

Early Language and Conceptual Development
Psychologist and IPR associate Sandra Waxman, with Susan Hespos and Alissa Ferry of Northwestern, tested 3- and 4-month-olds on their language development, revealing that infants link language and concepts earlier than previously thought. The researchers showed 46 infants a series of pictures of either fish or dinosaurs. Half heard a naming phrase with a novel word (“Look at the toma”); the others heard a series of tones, matched in amplitude and duration to the naming phrase. By measuring eye movements, they find that the babies who heard the language while viewing the images were better able to “categorize,” or link the image to a category group, than those babies who heard the simple tones. These results suggest that in the context of hearing language, infants pay particular attention to the objects and events that surround them. The findings were published in Child Development.

Caregiver Speech and Child Language Growth
In a Cognitive Psychology article, IPR education researcher and statistician Larry Hedges and his co-authors reveal the important influence of caregiver speech for language growth in early childhood. The researchers conducted a longitudinal study of 47 child-caregiver pairs from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. They examine the diversity of words and syntactic structures used by the child, starting at 14 months and at several points through 46 months, as well as the correlated speech patterns of the child’s caregiver at each of those points. They find that the diversity of earlier caregiver speech significantly predicts corresponding diversity in a child’s later speech. In addition, demographic factors such as socioeconomic status, which typically predict language growth among children, are at least partially mediated by caregiver speech.

The study was co-authored by Janellen Huttenlocher of the University of Chicago, Heidi Waterfall of Cornell, Marina Vasilyeva of Boston College, and Jack Vevea of the University of California, Merced. Hedges is Board of Trustees Professor of Statistics and Social Policy.

“Baby Media” and Brain Development
Communication studies researcher and IPR associate Ellen Wartella is investigating the impact of television and other digital media on the lives and development of children and adolescents. In a Developmental Review article with Rebekah Richert and Michael Robb of the University of California, Riverside, she looks at the rise of “baby media”—television, video, and computer content targeted to children under the age of 2, such as Teletubbies and Baby Einstein. They trace the industry’s origins back to the start of children’s television in the 1950s and identify several key factors of its growth. These factors include the ubiquitous role of television in American families, evidence of the educational benefits of some TV programs for preschoolers, and positive parental beliefs about the usefulness of such media in preparing young children for school. However, the researchers warn, there are constraints on what kinds of things babies can learn from screen media, and the longer-term effects of sustained, early exposure on brain development are unclear. Wartella is Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor of Communcation.

	IPR associates Joan Chiao (l.) and Carol Lee discuss new developments in the merging field of cultural neuroscience.

Cultural Neuroscience
Cultural neuroscience is an emerging field that integrates cultural psychology, brain sciences, and population genetics. In addition to contributing to empirical evidence, neuroscientist and IPR associate Joan Chiao is developing theory and methods that seek to address the novel opportunities and challenges in cultural neuroscience and population health disparities. In an article in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, she and her colleagues caution researchers to carefully consider their definition of culture as to avoid unintentional research biases. In human neuroimaging, for example, more than 90 percent of peer-reviewed neuroimaging studies come from Western, industrialized nations—which do not account for the cultural values, practices, and beliefs inherent in Eastern cultures that can also affect brain function and behavior.

Culture and Medical Treatment

Rebecca Seligman studies the way in which cultural and social factors shape individual experiences of illness.

IPR anthropologist Rebecca Seligman’s research adds to growing awareness of how various cultural and social factors help shape individual experiences of mental and physical illness. Her recent work focuses on disparities in mental and physical health among Mexican immigrants in the United States. Findings from her mixed-methods research on diabetes and depression among first- and second-generation Mexican immigrants suggest that, in this population, negative emotions are closely associated with social, economic, and political hardship. Such emotions are perceived as tightly linked to blood sugar control, so for many of the participants in her study, structural factors were experienced as directly affecting diabetes control. Her findings also suggest that participants prioritized family well-being over individual health and considered family more central to diabetes management than either doctors or the ill individual.

Both sets of findings have major implications for diabetes self-care practices, expectations for medical management, and the development of effective, culturally sensitive medical interventions for Mexican Americans with diabetes. Seligman has also started working on a new project to investigate whether culturally mediated cognitive and embodied dimensions of selfhood affect emotion processing and risk for depression among adolescents in the context of transnational migration between Mexico and the United States.

Globalization and Health Outcomes
IPR/C2S faculty continue to examine how globalization affects health outcomes through two ongoing longitudinal studies: the Tsimane Amazonian Panel Study in Bolivia, for which McDade is a faculty contributor, and the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey in the Philippines, for which anthropologist Christopher Kuzawa is a primary collaborator. Both McDade and Kuzawa use data from these two studies to look at issues related to disease risk and development and gene-environment links. In addition to furthering knowledge about the long-term health effects of early environments, these studies can provide additional insight on domestic health outcomes.

Environment, Geography, and Disease Risk
With several colleagues, Kuzawa took part in a study that looked at distributions of the e4 allele of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene around the world. APOE is linked to high cholesterol levels and heart disease and has been shown to vary in humans and by latitude. Their study is the first to match worldwide APOE allele frequency and patterns with latitude, temperature, and elevation readings while controlling for population differences in genotype.

They find a strong geographic pattern, with the lowest frequencies found in humans who live in the mid-latitudes, or more temperate climates, where the human body requires less energy to cool down or keep warm. Because metabolic rates are elevated in hot (around the equator) and cold (around the poles) environments and thus lead to increased cholesterol levels, this adds to the evidence that natural selection might have shaped distributions of the e4 allele in humans across the globe.
The findings were published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Inflammation and Disease Risk
McDade continues to study inflammation and disease risk. One study using Cebu data that measured levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) in infants has received widespread media attention. Its main takeaway is that contact with germs, dirt, and other microbes early in life—especially in the first year—helps the body learn how to regulate its immune responses and perhaps to protect against inflammation-related diseases in adulthood.

Published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, the study’s co-authors are Kuzawa, Linda Adair of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Julienne Rutherford of the University of Illinois at Chicago. The findings also played a role in a new grant from the National Science Foundation to further study the dynamics of inflammation in an environment characterized by high levels of infectious disease.

Brain Energetics and Evolution
Kuzawa is collaborating on a five-year, NSF-funded study with geneticists and research scientists at Wayne State University that explores why the human brain learns so quickly in childhood and adolescence and then tapers with age. The brain consumes enormous amounts of energy in the form of glucose during this learning ramp-up. By comparing human glucose consumption in the brain with that of primates across their respective lifespans, the researchers hope to identify differences between the two
and pinpoint what gives the human species its extraordinary cognitive abilities.

Infant Weight Gain and Male Maturity
In another study using Cebu data, Kuzawa, McDade, and their colleagues examined a variety of physical characteristics, including weight, height, and muscle mass, in 770 Filipino men from birth until their early 20s. The researchers find that rapid weight gain by male infants in the first six months of life—a time at which all male infants experience a testosterone “surge”—has long-lasting biological effects. Those infants who gained weight most rapidly grew taller and stronger and had higher testosterone levels as young adults. Similar patterns were not observed in the female participants in the study, suggesting that differences between young men and women in the study are also linked to early infant nutrition, providing more support that nurture plays an important role in development. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study’s findings were reported by National Geographic, Scientific American, Chicago Public Radio, and others.

Sex Ratios and Male Lifespan
There are areas around the world where there are more men than women (as in China) or more women than men (as in Latvia and Estonia). In an article for Demography, IPR sociologist Jeremy Freese and his co-authors are the first to show how the ratio of available female and male mates corresponds to individual health and survival rates for men. Using 50 years of data from Medicare and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Survey, they began by indexing the number of possible female partners for more than 7.5 million men. The researchers find that in those areas with more sexually mature men than women, male death rates were higher. The death rates might be affected by the men having to wait longer to get married—or not getting married at all—having fewer partners to choose from, or experiencing stress in the competition for a suitable mate.

Social Science Perspectives on Sexuality Research
Sociology professors Héctor Carrillo and Steven Epstein, both IPR associates, are co-conveners of The Sexualities Project (TSP) at Northwestern, a new initiative that promotes interdisciplinary research and education on sexuality and health in social context. The project has recently fielded a competitive request for faculty research proposals that address critical and interdisciplinary perspectives on the topic and has posted calls for applications for graduate student summer research and dissertation fellowships for 2011–12. In addition, TSP is helping to build the field of sexuality studies through an open competition for a two-year postdoctoral fellowship; fellows will be located in gender studies and another social science department at Northwestern.

The project also organized its first workshop for spring 2011 on “Epistemologies of Desire: Beyond Single-Discipline Approaches,” with lectures by Yale historian and gender studies professor Joanne Meyerowitz and sexual historian and theorist David Halperin of the University of Michigan. TSP is a project of Northwestern’s department of gender studies in collaboration with C2S and the Science in Human Culture Program. Epstein is John C. Shaffer Professor in the Humanities.

Ideology and Equality Between the Sexes

A recent study by Jennifer Richeson looks at the competing ideologies of “sexblindness” and “sexawareness” in public life.

A study by IPR social psychologist Jennifer Richeson and Anne Koenig of the University of California, San Diego, in Social Psychology sheds light on the debate popularly characterized as “women are from Venus and men from Mars.” If equality between the sexes is a goal, the researchers ask, then to what extent do men and women believe that differences between them should be either emphasized or ignored? Building on the racial diversity models of colorblindness and multiculturalism, the researchers define two gender ideologies: “sexblindness,” in which people ignore gender as a means to achieve gender equality, and “sexawareness,” in which people recognize and celebrate gender differences. Using a 12-item scale, they tested the attitudes and beliefs of more than 200 males and females. Findings indicate participants were more likely to support sexblindness in a work setting, suggesting that people perceive it as a way to reduce sexism. In social settings, those with more sexblind attitudes also seemed to be less sexist. Richeson is Weinberg College Board of Visitors Research and Teaching Professor.

Politics and the HPV Vaccine
When a vaccine for the human papillomavirus (HPV) arrived on the market in 2006, religious conservatives decried the government’s approval of the vaccine as implicitly sanctioning teen sex and encouraging promiscuity while advocates applauded its potential to prevent 4,000 cervical cancer deaths in the United States each year. Three Shots at Prevention: The HPV Vaccine and the Politics of Medicine’s Simple Solutions (Johns Hopkins Press, 2010), co-edited by Epstein, explores the national debate that erupted over the controversial vaccine intended to protect against HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection. The volume addresses moral, ethical, and scientific questions when public policy, sexual health, and the politics of vaccination collide.

Race and Biotechnology
A decade after the Human Genome Project proved that human beings are not naturally divided by race, IPR law professor Dorothy Roberts finds that a spate of new of technologies, including personalized medicine, reproductive technologies, and DNA databanks, underscore subtle efforts to recast race as a biological category. Her forthcoming book Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century (The New Press) traces race’s constantly shifting definition and its expanding use in current biomedical research and technology. Roberts’ in-depth interviews with scientists and policymakers help expose the political consequences of a racial ideology that pushes away a society-wide focus on eliminating social disparities in favor of an individual’s responsibility for managing his or her health at a genetic level. Project funding came from the National Science Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Roberts is Kirkland & Ellis Professor.

Oncofertility
Survival rates among young cancer patients have steadily increased over the past four decades in part because of the development of more effective cancer treatments. Today, both women and men can look forward to life after cancer, yet many may face the possibility of infertility as a result of the disease itself or these lifesaving treatments. The Oncofertility Consortium, led by IPR associate Teresa Woodruff, was developed to address the complex health-care and quality-of-life issues that concern young cancer patients whose fertility might be threatened by cancer or
its treatment.

The consortium represents a nationwide, interdisciplinary, and interprofessional network of medical specialists, scientists, and scholars who are exploring the relationships between health, disease, survivorship, and fertility preservation in young cancer patients. Their work and its findings might also extend to patients who have been diagnosed with other serious diseases and who must undergo fertility-threatening treatments. Recently, the consortium collaborated with the Cancer Legal Resource Center, Fertile Hope, the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine to write fertility preservation legislation, since introduced in the California State Assembly, that would provide cancer patients and others fighting diseases through aggressive treatments with insurance coverage for fertility preservation technology. Woodruff ?is Thomas J. Watkins Memorial Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and head of the Division of Fertility Preservation at Northwestern; she also directs the NIH-funded Center for Reproductive Research.

	Jeremy Freese is examining differences in population sex ratios and how these ratios affect the average lifespan of males in the community.

Genetics and the Social Sciences
Freese continues to pursue a place for sociology in interdisciplinary research that spans social, psychological, and biological analyses within the context of social and technological change. Freese and Sara Shostak of Brandeis University wrote about the gene-environment interaction and medical sociology for the 6th edition of the Handbook of Medical Sociology (Vanderbilt University Press, 2010). They hold up the discipline as an example to others by pointing to how medical sociologists are at the forefront of attempts to integrate genetic and social science inquiry, with particular efforts focusing on how gene-environment interactions contribute to disease development. These sociologists incorporate a broad, cross-disciplinary mix of theories and methods—combining for example, ethnographic, content, and public attitude analyses with genotypic data—in their studies.

Heritability vs. Genes as Covariates
In a 2010 IPR working paper, IPR economist Charles F. Manski distinguishes between two types of work relating human genetics to personal outcomes: the old literature on heritability, which erupted with IQ research in the 1960s and 1970s, and more recent research using genes as covariates. Heritability research has generally tried to determine the relative influence of “nature” vs. “nurture” by sorting variation in observed outcomes into unobservable genetic and environmental components. In particular, large estimates of heritability have been interpreted as implying small potential policy effectiveness. Manski shows that this interpretation is incorrect because it only addresses outcome variation in the present environment. Social planners, on the other hand, are more interested in how population outcomes might improve if environmental factors were changed, and heritability is completely uninformative in this context.

Meanwhile, Manski illustrates the informative potential of research using genes as covariates. For example, if researchers find that the outcomes of certain medical treatments or education interventions vary systematically across persons with observed genetic covariates, then physicians or school counselors could productively tailor treatment decisions on these covariates, even without a full understanding of the causal mechanisms at work. He suggests that biologists, medical researchers, and social scientists work in concert to understand the interaction of genetic and environmental factors, their combined as well as relative predictive power, and the set of genetic covariates that are most relevant for determining individual outcomes.

Science of Science Policy
Prior to 1950, the lone scientist made most breakout scientific discoveries. Since then, teams of scientists have been responsible for almost all blockbuster discoveries. Having documented this “near universal sea-change” in scientific investigation, management and strategy professor Brian Uzzi, an IPR associate, is using an IPR seed grant to access the ISI Web of Science database and expand his study of interdisciplinary teams and networks, particularly in the public health and science policy arenas. Specifically, he and his colleagues are investigating how multidisciplinary teams affect scientific impact and whether increased funding for multidisciplinary teams is warranted. They are also investigating how the trend might affect U.S. leadership in science. Uzzi is Richard L. Thomas Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change.

C2S Welcomes Former Surgeon General, Leading Scholars
Dr. David Satcher, former U.S. Surgeon General under President Bill Clinton, spoke on October 28 to a crowded auditorium of more than 300. As head of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, he reviewed his institute’s efforts to train and develop a diverse group of health leaders, to advance comprehensive health system strategies, and to actively promote policies and practices to reduce and, ultimately, eliminate health disparities. C2S sponsored the 2010 Hollister Lecture with the Feinberg School of Medicine’s Program in Public Health.

C2S also welcomed U.K. epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett on January 12 in Evanston. The two scholars discussed how large gaps in income equality cause a range of problems, including low life expectancy, illiteracy, stress, and high crime rates. They pointed to a wide range of studies supporting this correlation, which were enumerated in their best-selling book, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger (Bloomsbury USA, 2009).

On May 7, Ilan Meyer of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health lectured on “Sexual Orientation and Disparities in Mental Health.” Meyer spoke about his well-known model of minority stress that describes the relationship of social stressors and mental disorders and helps to explain lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender health disparities. C2S co-sponsored his talk with the Center on the Science of Diversity at Northwestern.

Fostering a Multidisciplinary Community
Through its colloquia, C2S continues to foster a community of scholars interested in multidisciplinary research, human development, health, and well-being. Over the year, C2S brought in several speakers, including sociologist Mark Hayward, director of the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Hayward spoke on November 8 about his research on how social relationships, such as marriage and divorce, affect adult health. Douglas Granger, a psychoneuroendocrinology researcher now at Johns Hopkins, gave a talk on May 3 about using salivary alpha-amylase, a surrogate biomarker of stress, in research. (See p. 76.)

Biomarker Methodology and Training

Participants of the C2S Summer Biomarker Institute learn to collect dried blood spots for incorporating biological markers into research.

C2S’ Summer Biomarker Institute celebrated its fifth anniversary in 2010. It is organized by Adam, McDade, and Kuzawa, all nationally recognized leaders in biomarker development, implementation, usage, and analysis. At the 2010 workshop, 36 participants learned about biological theory and methodology and received hands-on training for salivary and blood-spot biomarkers. Several guest speakers were also featured, including IPR associate Ann Borders, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, who gave a presentation on diverse populations and biomarker research, and Feinberg genetic epidemiologist/anthropologist Geoffrey Hayes, who spoke about studies using DNA.

McDade continues to refine the use of biomarkers as part of the Laboratory for Human Biology Research, which he directs. The laboratory works to develop methods for assaying biomarkers in a drop of blood collected on filter paper from a single finger prick. Three new projects seek to expand this methodological toolkit to include measures of inflammatory cytokines or messenger proteins, ovarian function, and exposure to heavy metals in a few drops of finger-stick whole blood. Adam is also working to improve salivary measures of cortisol.