scholarly journals Family Socioeconomic Status and Exposure to Childhood Trauma: Racial Differences

Children ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shervin Assari
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
Childhood Trauma ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Family Income ◽  
Polynomial Regression ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Protective Effects ◽  
Parental Educational Attainment

Background: Minorities’ diminished returns (MDRs) refer to weaker effects of socioeconomic status (SES) indicators such as parental educational attainment and family income in generating tangible childhood outcomes for racial and ethnic minorities compared to the majority group, a pattern prevalent in the US. Our existing knowledge is minimal, however, about diminished returns of family SES on reducing exposure to childhood trauma. Aim: To determine if there was a difference between non-Hispanic whites (NHW) and non-Hispanic blacks (NHB) in the effect of SES on exposure to childhood trauma among children ages 8–11 years old. Materials and methods: In this cross-sectional study, we analyzed data from 4696 NHW or NHB American 8–11-year-old children who were participants in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. The independent variables were parental educational attainment and family income. The primary outcome was exposure to 1 or 2+ childhood traumas, measured by the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (K-SADS) semi-structured interview. Polynomial regression was used for data analysis. Results: Parental education and family income had statistically significant protective (negative) effects on childhood trauma, indicating children from high income and highly educated families were exposed to a lower level of childhood trauma. However, race/ethnicity showed statistically significant interactions with parental education and family income on exposure to childhood trauma, indicating weaker protective effects of parental education and family income on reducing exposure to trauma for NHB compared to NHW children. Race-specific models showed protective effects of parental education and family income on exposure to childhood trauma for NHW but not NHB children. Conclusion: The protective effects of parental education and family income against exposure to childhood trauma are systematically diminished for NHBs compared to NHWs. To minimize the racial/ethnic health gaps, diminished returns of parental education and family income should be addressed. There is a need for programs and interventions that equalize not only SES but also the marginal returns of SES for ethnic groups. Such efforts require addressing structural and societal barriers that hinder NHB families from translating their SES resources into tangible outcomes. There is a need for studies that can minimize MDRs for NHB families, such that SES can similarly secure tangible outcomes in the presence of SES resources.

scholarly journals Unequal Protective Effects of Parental Educational Attainment on the Body Mass Index of Black and White Youth

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (19) ◽  
pp. 3641 ◽  
Author(s):  
Assari ◽  
Boyce ◽  
Bazargan ◽  
Mincy ◽  
Caldwell
Keyword(s):  
Body Mass Index ◽  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Health Disparities ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Protective Effects ◽  
White Youth ◽  
Parental Educational Attainment

Background: Parental educational attainment is shown to be protective against health problems; the Minorities’ Diminished Returns theory, however, posits that these protective effects tend to be smaller for socially marginalized groups particularly blacks than whites. Aims: To explore racial differences in the effect of parental educational attainment on body mass index (BMI) in a national sample of US adolescents. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we used baseline data of 10,701 (8678 white and 2023 black) 12–17 years old adolescents in the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH; 2013). Parental educational attainment was the predictor. Youth BMI (based on self-reported weight and height) was the dependent variable. Age, gender, ethnicity, and family structure were covariates. Race was the focal moderator. Results: Overall, higher parental educational attainment was associated with lower youth BMI. Race, however, moderated the effect of parental educational attainment on BMI, suggesting that the protective effect of parenting educational attainment on BMI is significantly smaller for black than white youth. Conclusions: In the United States, race alters the health gains that are expected to follow parental educational attainment. While white youth who are from highly educated families are fit, black youth have high BMI at all levels of parental educational attainment. This means, while the most socially privileged group, whites, gain the most health from their parental education, blacks, the least privileged group, gain the least. Economic, social, public, and health policymakers should be aware that health disparities are not all due to lower socioeconomic status (SES) of the disadvantaged group but also diminished returns of SES resources for them. Black–white health disparities exist across all high socioeconomic status (SES) levels.

scholarly journals Family Income Mediates the Effect of Parental Education on Adolescents’ Hippocampus Activation During an N-Back Memory Task

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shervin Assari ◽  
Shanika Boyce ◽  
Mohsen Bazargan ◽  
Cleopatra H. Caldwell
Keyword(s):  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Marital Status ◽  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Family Income ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Linear Regression Models ◽  
Left Hippocampus ◽  
Neighborhood Income ◽  
Parental Educational Attainment

Introduction: Hippocampus, a medial temporal lobe structure, has significant implications in memory formation and learning. Although hippocampus activity is believed to be affected by socioeconomic status (SES), limited knowledge exists on which SES indicators influence hippocampus function. Purpose: This study explored the separate and combined effects of three SES indicators, namely parental education, family income, and neighborhood income, on adolescents’ hippocampus activation during an N-Back memory task. As some of the effects of parental education may be through income, we also tested if the effect of parental education on hippocampus activation during our N-Back memory task is mediated by family or neighborhood income. Methods: The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study is a national multi-center investigation of American adolescents’ brain development. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data of a total sample of 3067 9–10-year-old adolescents were used. The primary outcome was left- hippocampus activation during the N-Back memory task (mean beta weight for N-Back run 1 2 back versus 0 back contrast in left hippocampus). The independent variable was parental education. Family income and neighborhood income were two possible mediators. Age, sex, and marital status were the covariates. To test mediation, we used hierarchical linear regression models first without and then with our mediators. Full mediation was defined according to Kenny. The Sobel test was used to confirm statistical mediation. Results: In the absence of family and neighborhood income in the model, higher parental educational attainment was associated with lower level of left hippocampus activation during the N-Back memory task. This effect was significant while age, sex, and marital status were controlled. The association between parental educational attainment and hippocampus activation during the N-Back memory task was no more significant when we controlled for family and neighborhood income. Instead, family income was associated with hippocampus activation during the N-Back memory task. These findings suggested that family income fully mediates the effect of parental educational attainment on left hippocampus activation during the N-Back memory task. Conclusions: The effect of parental educational attainment on adolescents’ hippocampus activation during an N-Back memory task is fully explained by family income. That means low family income is why adolescents with low-educated parents show highlighted hippocampus activation during an N-Back memory task. Given the central role of the hippocampus in learning and memory and as income is a modifiable factor by tax and economic policies, income-redistribution policies, fair taxation, and higher minimum wage may have implications for promotion of adolescent equality and social justice. There is a need to focus on family-level economic needs across all levels of neighborhood income.

scholarly journals Association Between Parental Educational Attainment and Children’s Negative Urgency: Sex Differences

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-22
Author(s):  
Shervin Assari
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Sensation Seeking ◽  
Regression Models ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Negative Urgency ◽  
Protective Effects ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Parental Educational Attainment

Background and aims: Negative urgency reflects a specific facet of impulsivity and correlates with a wide range of health-related risk behaviors, including, but not limited to, problematic substance use. Negative urgency is also shaped by family socioeconomic position (SEP), such as parental educational attainment (PEA). This study aimed to explore sex differences regarding protective effects of PEA on children’s negative urgency in the US. Methods: This cross-sectional study used the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study data. Baseline ABCD data included 10,535 American children in the age range of 9-10 years old. The independent variable was PEA, treated as a 5-level categorical variable. The primary outcome was negative urgency measured by the Urgency, Premeditation, Perseverance, Sensation Seeking, Positive Urgency, Impulsive Behavior Scale (UPPS-SS). Mixed-effects regression models were applied for data analysis. Results: In sex-stratified regression models, high PEA was predictive of lower levels of negative urgency in female but not male children. In the overall sample, sex showed a statistically significant interaction with PEA on children’s negative urgency, indicating a stronger protective effect of high PEA for female compared to male children. Conclusion: PEA was a more salient determinant of negative urgency in female children than male ones. Our results also showed that American boys tend to have high levels of negative urgency, which is a risk factor of drug use, at all parental education levels.

scholarly journals Parental Education and Spanking of American Children: Blacks’ Diminished Returns

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. p19
Author(s):  
Shervin Assari
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Health Disparities ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Black Families ◽  
Inverse Association ◽  
Child Exposure ◽  
White Families ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Parental Educational Attainment

Background: Based on the Minorities’ Diminished Returns (MDRs) framework, high socioeconomic status (SES) indicators such as parental education shows weaker protective effects against adverse experiences for Blacks than Whites. For example, Black children with highly educated parents report high levels of depression, anxiety, suicide, smoking, obesity, and chronic disease. Limited knowledge exists on MDRs of parental education on the child’s exposure to spanking by the mother. Aims: Built on the MDRs framework, we tested the hypothesis of whether the effect of parental education on the child’s exposure to spanking by the mother differs in Black and White families. We hypothesized that: 1) there is an inverse association between mothers’ educational attainment and child spanking, and 2) the effect of mothers’ educational attainment on mothers’ spanking of the child is weaker for Black than White families. Methods: We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study (FFCWS), a 9-year follow up study of a random sample of births in cities larger than 200,000 population. In this analysis, 2722 Black or White families were followed. The main predictor was parental educational attainment at birth. The outcomes were exposure to spanking at ages 3, 5, and 9.Logisticregression was used for data analysis. Results: Higher parental educational attainment at birth was inversely associated with the child’s exposure to spanking by the mother among Whites, not Blacks. We also found a significant interaction between parental educational attainment at birth and race, suggesting that the associations between parental education and child exposure to spanking by the mother at ages3, 5, and 9were weaker for Black than White families.Conclusions: Diminished returns of parental educational attainment in terms of reducing children’s exposure to trauma and stress may be a mechanism that contributes to racial health disparities, particularly poor health of children in highly educated Black families. That is a smaller protective effect of parental education on reducing undesired exposures for Black than White children may be one of the mechanisms that may explain why children develop worse than expected physical, mental, and behavioral health in high SES Black families. Not all health disparities are due to racial differences in SES, but some of them are also secondary to the diminishing returns of socioeconomic status indicators such as parental education for racial minorities. Research should study contextual, structural, family, and behavioral factors that reduce Black families’ ability to mobilize their human capital and secure health outcomes for themselves and their children.

scholarly journals Maternal Education at Birth and Youth Breakfast Consumption at Age 15: Blacks’ Diminished Returns

J ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shervin Assari ◽  
Shanika Boyce ◽  
Mohsen Bazargan ◽  
Cleopatra H. Caldwell ◽  
Ron Mincy
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Maternal Education ◽  
Black Families ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
White Families ◽  
Eating Breakfast ◽  
High Level

Background: Based on the Marginalization-related Diminished Returns (MDRs) framework, high socioeconomic status (SES) such as parental education shows weaker effects for Blacks than Whites. For example, high SES Black individuals report a high level of depression, anxiety, suicide, chronic disease, smoking, and mortality. Limited knowledge exists on MDRs of parental education on dietary behavior. Aims: Built on the MDRs framework, we tested the hypothesis of whether the effect of parental education on eating breakfast differs for Black compared to White families. We hypothesized that there is an association between mothers’ educational attainment and eating breakfast and compared Blacks and Whites for the effect of mothers’ educational attainment on the frequency of eating breakfast. Methods: The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study is a 15-year follow up study of a random sample of births in cities larger than 200,000 population. The predictor was parental education at birth. The outcome was the frequency of eating breakfast at age 15. Linear regression was used for data analysis. Results: Maternal educational attainment at birth was positively associated with youth frequency of eating breakfast among Whites, not Blacks. We also found a significant interaction between maternal educational attainment at birth and race, suggesting that the association between maternal education and youth frequency of eating breakfast at age 15 was weaker for Black than White families. Conclusions: Diminished returns of maternal educational attainment on healthy youth diet may contribute to the racial disparities in poor health of high SES Black families. That is, a smaller protective effect of maternal education on changing health behaviors for Black than White youth may be one of the mechanisms by which health is worse than expected in high SES Black families. The health disparities are not only due to racial differences in SES but also the diminishing returns of socioeconomic status indicators such as education for racial minorities. Research should study contextual and structural factors that reduce Black families’ ability to mobilize their human capital and secure health outcomes in urban settings.

scholarly journals Diminished Returns of Own and Parental Education on Subjective Health of Immigrants in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shervin Assari
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Subjective Health ◽  
Categorical Variables ◽  
Protective Effects ◽  
Immigration Status ◽  
Parental Educational Attainment

Background: Educational attainment is a strong social determinant of health. Marginalization-related Diminished Returns (MDRs), however, refer to smaller health effects of socioeconomic status, particularly educational attainment for marginalized groups compared to mainstream populations. While multiple studies have documented MDRs of educational attainment for racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities, there are no previous studies on MDRs of education among immigrants.Aims: To understand if the MDRs phenomenon also applies to immigrants, we compared immigrant and non-immigrant American adults for the effects of their own and parental educational attainment on subjective health.Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design and borrowed data from the General Social Survey (1972-2018). GSS is a series of nationally representative surveys in the US. Our analytical sample included 38,399 adults who were either non-immigrants (n = 34903; 90.9%) or immigrants (n = 3496; 9.1%). The main independent variables were own and parental educational attainment measured as four-level categorical variables. The dependent variable (DV) was poor subjective health, measured using a single item. Age, sex, marital status, and year of the survey were the covariates. Immigration status was the moderator.Results: Overall, individuals with higher educational attainment of own and parents reported better subjective health. We, however, found significant interactions between immigration status and both own and parental educational attainment on subjective health which was suggestive of weaker protective effects of own and parental educational attainment against poor subjective health in immigrants than non-immigrant individuals.Conclusions: In the United States, immigrant adults experience poor subjective health disproportionate to the educational attainment of their own and parents. That means we may observe worse than expected health of immigrants across all educational levels and social classes. Public policies should go beyond equal access to education by empowering marginalized people to leverage their education and secure outcomes.

scholarly journals The Role of Parent Educational Attainment in Parenting and Children’s Development

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-192
Author(s):  
Pamela E. Davis-Kean ◽  
Lauren A. Tighe ◽  
Nicholas E. Waters
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Home Environment ◽  
Family Income ◽  
Developmental Outcomes ◽  
Cognitive Stimulation ◽  
Educational Inequalities ◽  
Powerful Predictor

Socioeconomic status (SES)—indexed via parent educational attainment, parent occupation, and family income—is a powerful predictor of children’s developmental outcomes. Variations in these resources predict large academic disparities among children from different socioeconomic backgrounds that persist over the years of schooling, perpetuating educational inequalities across generations. In this article, we provide an overview of a model that has guided our approach to studying these influences, focusing particularly on parent educational attainment. Parents’ educational attainment typically drives their occupations and income and is often used interchangeably with SES in research. We posit that parent educational attainment provides a foundation that supports children’s academic success indirectly through parents’ beliefs about and expectations for their children, as well as through the cognitive stimulation that parents provide in and outside of the home environment. We then expand this model to consider the intergenerational contributions and dynamic transactions within families that are important considerations for informing potential avenues for intervention.

scholarly journals Cognitive and brain development is independently influenced by socioeconomic status and polygenic scores for educational attainment

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (22) ◽  
pp. 12411-12418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Judd ◽  
Bruno Sauce ◽  
John Wiedenhoeft ◽  
Jeshua Tromp ◽  
Bader Chaarani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Brain Development ◽  
Surface Area ◽  
Brain Structure ◽  
Parental Education ◽  
Cortical Surface ◽  
Cortical Surface Area ◽  
Regional Association ◽  
Polygenic Scores

Genetic factors and socioeconomic status (SES) inequalities play a large role in educational attainment, and both have been associated with variations in brain structure and cognition. However, genetics and SES are correlated, and no prior study has assessed their neural associations independently. Here we used a polygenic score for educational attainment (EduYears-PGS), as well as SES, in a longitudinal study of 551 adolescents to tease apart genetic and environmental associations with brain development and cognition. Subjects received a structural MRI scan at ages 14 and 19. At both time points, they performed three working memory (WM) tasks. SES and EduYears-PGS were correlated (r= 0.27) and had both common and independent associations with brain structure and cognition. Specifically, lower SES was related to less total cortical surface area and lower WM. EduYears-PGS was also related to total cortical surface area, but in addition had a regional association with surface area in the right parietal lobe, a region related to nonverbal cognitive functions, including mathematics, spatial cognition, and WM. SES, but not EduYears-PGS, was related to a change in total cortical surface area from age 14 to 19. This study demonstrates a regional association of EduYears-PGS and the independent prediction of SES with cognitive function and brain development. It suggests that the SES inequalities, in particular parental education, are related to global aspects of cortical development, and exert a persistent influence on brain development during adolescence.

scholarly journals Family Income and Gang Presence in the Neighborhood: Diminished Returns of Black Families

Urban Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shervin Assari ◽  
Shanika Boyce ◽  
Cleopatra H. Caldwell ◽  
Mohsen Bazargan ◽  
Ron Mincy
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Maternal Education ◽  
Family Income ◽  
Black Families ◽  
Categorical Variables ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Protective Effects ◽  
White Families ◽  
Poor Outcomes

Background: Based on the Minorities’ Diminished Returns (MDRs) framework, indicators of high socioeconomic status, such as higher family income, show weaker protective effects on various developmental, behavioral, and health outcomes for Black than White families. As a result of these MDRs, Black families who access education and income still report high levels of depression, smoking, obesity, and chronic disease. Limited knowledge exists on MDRs of income on neighborhood quality. Aims: Built on the MDRs framework, this study tested the hypothesis of whether the effect of family income and maternal education at birth on neighborhood gang presence varies between Black and White families. The hypotheses were that: (1) higher income families would report lower gang presence in their neighborhood, and (2) compared to Whites, Blacks would show weaker protective effects of family income on gang presence in their neighborhood. Methods: The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study is a 15-year follow up study of a random sample of births in cities with larger than 200,000 population. Two thousand nine hundred and nineteen White or Black families were included and were followed from birth of their child for 15 years. The predictors were family income and maternal education at birth, treated as categorical variables. The outcome was gang presence in the neighborhood at age 15. Logistic regression was used for data analysis. Results: Higher maternal education at birth was inversely associated with gang presence in the neighborhoods, while family income at birth did not show an effect on reducing gang presence in the neighborhood at age 15. Family income at birth and race interact, suggesting that the association between family income at birth and gang presence in the neighborhood at age 15 was weaker for Black than White families. Our race-stratified models also showed an inverse effect of family income at birth on gang presence in the neighborhood at age 15 in White but not Black families. Conclusions: Diminished returns of family income at birth on neighborhood safety and social disorder may be a mechanism that contributes to racial health disparities in higher socioeconomic status and also poor outcomes for Black families across socioeconomic status (SES) levels. That is, a smaller protective effect of family income on changing the real lives of Black compared to White families may be one of the mechanisms by which health is worse than expected in Black families, across the entire SES spectrum. The health, behavioral, and developmental disparities are not only due to the racial gap in SES but also diminishing returns of socioeconomic status indicators such as family income for racial minorities. Research should study contextual and structural factors that reduce Black families’ ability to mobilize their human capital and secure health outcomes in urban settings.

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