PSTC Research: FAMILIES AND HOUSEHOLDS
The PSTC has a longstanding reputation for scholarship and innovation in the area of families and households. New PSTC-based work in this area emphasizes dynamics of household change, processes and patterns of intra-family and inter-generational exchange, and links between household dynamics and macro outcomes. A distinctive feature of this research at Brown is its strength across three social science disciplines: anthropology, economics, and sociology.
PSTC researchers are particularly active in the area of family stratification – exploring inequalities related to gender, race/ethnicity/nativity, and disability in families and households. A hallmark of PSTC research is its emphasis on context as critical to models of family and household processes and outcomes. In addition to policy context, PSTC researchers study social and kinship networks; environmental contexts such as landcover, air, and water quality; economic contexts including employment opportunities, poverty, and economic growth; and neighborhood contexts including segregation.
Projects in the Families and Households thematic area include:
Project Title: The Economic Determinants of Domestic Violence
PSTC Investigators: Anna Aizer
Funding: NSF
Other Research Areas: Social Behavior and Health
Description: This project involves an analysis of the impact of women's wages and labor market conditions on violence against women. To establish a causal relationship between earnings and domestic violence, I take advantage of the fact that certain industries are dominated by women (eg, services) and others by men (eg, construction). Increases in demand in these sectors results in exogenous increases in female and male wages, respectively. By focusing on local labor market conditions and exogenous labor demand shocks, I can identify the impact of changes
in relative income on domestic violence.Project Title: Prenatal Conditions and Postnatal Environments: Impact on Future Economic Status
PSTC Investigators: Anna Aizer
Funding: NSF
Other Research Areas: Social Behavior and Health
Description:This proposal will explore whether and how prenatal conditions and postnatal environments explain black-white differences in human capital accumulation and adult earnings with a focus on the role of stress.Project Title: Violence Against Women and Birth Outcomes
PSTC Investigators: Anna Aizer
Funding: NICHD
Other Research Areas: Social Behavior and Health
Description: Using individual-level California natality and mortality data linked to data on hospitalization for assault during the pregnancy for the period 1991-2002, I provide the first causal estimates of the impact of violence on birth outcomes using an instrumental variable strategy. This is followed by exploratory analysis of the pathways by which violence affects birth outcomes - through the direct effect of blunt trauma or the indirect effects of increased maternal risk taking and delay in seeking prenatal care.Project Title: Food Security Among Resettled Refugees
PSTC Investigators: Craig Hadley
Funding: NSF
Other Research Areas: Social Behavior and Health, African Demography
Description: This project will produce estimates of the magnitude of the food insecurity situation in two resettled refugee communities, and will be the largest study of refugee health, and the only longitudinal study to date. By testing multiple determinants of health it will provide a nuanced understanding of what factors most influence health and well being in this vulnerable population. Results from the proposed research will have implications for several areas within anthropology including the health impacts of forced immigration, the relationship between culture and health, the causes of health disparities, and the use of anthropological methods to identify health-related issues relevant to study communities.
Project Title: Adolescents' Child Feeding Knowledge and Intentions
Funding: NICHD
PSTC Investigators: Craig Hadley
Other Research Areas: Social Behavior and Health, African Demography
Description: The proposed research seeks to explore current knowledge of child feeding practices and examining child feeding intentions among a diverse sample of Ethiopian adolescents. The main outcomes of interest are adolescents' knowledge and attitudes about specific feeding issues, and their intentions to exclusively breastfeed their children to six months, introduce appropriate foods starting at six months, and not use bottles to feed infants. Exposure to potential points of delivery for nutrition education programs will also be examined. Results from this proposed work will be among the first to report on adolescents' knowledge and intentions regarding infant and child feeding in the developing world, and will be useful as baseline data in this specific case, but will also have programmatic implications for public health interventions more broadly.
Project Title: Childcare in Challenging Environments: Identifying Barriers to Optimal Childcare Practice in Rural Tanzania
PSTC Investigators: Craig Hadley
Funding: NSF
Other Research Areas: Social Behavior and Health, African Demography
Description: This project supports ethnographic research into the causes and consequences of dramatic differences in the nutritional status of children from two ethnic groups living in rural Tanzania. Despite the same ecological, political, and physical environment, children of the agropastoralist Sukuma ethnic group have significantly lower rates of childhood stunting and underweight when compared to their neighbors, the horticulturalist Pimbwe, leading one to ask whether these differences in nutritional status reflect different risks of child mortality. Furthermore, if growth differences are related to young child feeding and care practices, why are the Sukuma are able to more closely conform to optimal practices when the Pimbwe cannot? This research conducted a cross-sectional study of the relationship between child growth and young child feeding and maternal caregiving behavior among Pimbwe and Sukuma children less than three years of age, followed by a one year prospective study of whether infant and child feeding and maternal care practices are associated with children’s weight gain and child mortality. This research seeks to tease apart the impact of family structure, economy, cultural beliefs, and maternal health on patterns of child feeding and care practices.Project Title: Exceptional Children—Exceptional Challenges: Developing an Interdisciplinary, Multinational Project for Studying Work-Family Dilemmas among Parents Raising Children with Disabilities
PSTC Investigators: Dennis Hogan (PI), Susan Short, Anna Aizer
Funding: Brown University
Other Research Areas: Social Behavior and Health
Description: Many more families are raising children with disabilities. The complexities of integrating work and family are especially great for families with these exceptional children. These complexities are of particular scientific and public policy interest because of the unusual demands they place on parental time and resources, and because of the elevated medical and accommodation expenses incurred by governments. This pilot project will undertake preliminary research and intensive planning for studies of the prevalence and types of child disability, the choices families make to meet conflicting family economic needs and time constraints, and the relative public and private costs of raising children with disabilities. This project looks at the public/private dilemmas of families raising children with disabilities in several settings including the U.S., Canada, Australia, Denmark, and the United Kingdom.Project Title: The Cultural Context of Infertility in Southern Nigeria: Meanings, Consequences and Coping Mechanisms
PSTC Investigators: Marida Hollos (Ulla Larsen, PI)
Funding: NSF
Other Research Areas: Fertility and HIV/AIDS, African Demography
Description: This research seeks to advance understanding of the cultural perceptions and social consequences of infertility in sub-Saharan Africa among the Ijo and Yakurr communities of southern Nigeria. It examines structural differences between these populations in order to analyze the link between descent and gender ideology on the one hand, and the perception of infertility and the treatment of infertile women on the other. The study is important for understanding the cultural perceptions and social consequences of infertility in sub-Saharan African societies.Project Title: Partnership for Improving Adolescent Reproductive Health in Ethiopia
PSTC Investigators: David Lindstrom (PI), Dennis Hogan, Craig Hadley,
Stephen McGarvey
Funding: David and Lucile Packard Foundation
Other Research Areas: Social Behavior and Health, Fertility and HIV/AIDS, African Demography
Description:The primary goals of Brown’s proposed project, Partnership in Improving Adolescent Reproductive Health in Ethiopia, are to: (1) enhance Ethiopian university-based capacity to train graduate students in population and health research and in the translation of research results into policy-relevant conclusions and recommendations; (2) build a regional population database of families and youth for program evaluation, policy analysis, and scholarly research, which will serve as a model for university-based population and health research teams in other regions of the country; (3) measure the relative impact of radio serial dramas on adolescent reproductive health knowledge and behavior, and make recommendations regarding investments in radio dramas as an intervention strategy for reaching youth and influencing their behavior; (4) demonstrate the potential value of longitudinal surveys for assessing the impact of reproductive health interventions; (5) develop capacity to effectively communicate demographic and health research findings to local and national reproductive health stakeholders; and (6) increase knowledge of factors that place youth at high risk of poor health and early life outcomes, as well as identify those program interventions and features of family and community life that are protective of youth and lead to good health and successful outcomes in life.
Project Title: Female Income and Family Welfare
PSTC Investigators: Kaivan Munshi (PI), Nancy Luke
Funding: NIH
Other Research Areas: Fertility and HIV/AIDS
Description: This project examines the effect of female income on household decisions and outcomes, including child health and education, female reproductive health, and marital violence, among tea plantation workers in Kerala, South India. Data collection includes a survey of 4000 female workers undertaken in December 2002-March 2003 and a qualitative component, consisting of in-depth interviews with 40 female workers and their husbands and 12 focus group discussions, conducted in January-February 2005.Project Title: Microcredit and Health Services Experiment in Bangladesh
PSTC Investigators: Mark Pitt (Stan Becker, PI)
Funding: NIH (Subcontract with Johns Hopkins University)
Other Research Areas: Social Behavior and Health, Spatial Inquiry
Description: This project will assemble, collect and analyze multiple rounds of survey data from Bangladesh, providing family-based and individual panel information on the long-term health and productivity effects of childhood nutritional intakes, indoor air pollution, and health interventions over a 25-year span, using a newly-available panel survey as well as a proposed additional survey round.Project Title: Children's Health and Nutrition, Adult Outcomes, and Intergenerational and Spatial Mobility
PSTC Investigators: Mark Pitt
Funding: NIH
Other Research Areas: Social Behavior and Health, Spatial Inquiry
Description: This project will assemble, collect and analyze multiple rounds of survey data from Bangladesh, providing family-based and individual panel information on the long-term health and productivity effects of childhood nutritional intakes, indoor air pollution, and health interventions over a 25-year span, using a newly-available panel survey as well as a proposed additional survey round.Project Title: Family Organization and Child Well-Being in Southern Africa
PSTC Investigators: Susan Short (PI), Abigail Harrison
Funding: NICHD
Research Areas: Social Behavior and Health, African Demography
Description: This research investigates the relationship between family organization and child well-being in Southern Africa, a region with substantial variation and change in children's living arrangements due to the current HIV/AIDS epidemic.Project Title: Household-Level Effects on HIV/AIDS Mortality
PSTC Investigators: Nicholas Townsend (Sangeetha Madhavan, PI)
Funding: NIH
Other Research Areas: Fertility and HIV/AIDS, Social Behavior and Health, African Demography
Description: This project addresses the effects of HIV/AIDS-related morbidity and mortality on household structure, composition, power dynamics and children's living arrangements. HIV/AIDS has attained epidemic proportions in sub-Saharan Africa over the past 10 years with particularly high prevalence rates in southern Africa.Project Title: Measuring Social Connection and Children's Well-Being Using Multiple Data Sources
PSTC Investigators: Nicholas Townsend (PI), John Logan
Other Research Areas: Spatial Inquiry, Social Behavior and Health, African Demography
Funding: NICHD
Description: The research will develop improved measures of social connection through coordinated analyses of intensive ethnographic data and a longitudinal demographic data about the same population in a rural area of South Africa. A great volume of research conducted in various contexts demonstrates that social connection is an important determinant of well-being measured by outcomes such as education, nutritional status, employment prospects, access to health care, and support of the aged and infirm. The most common measure of social connection in population and public health research is co-residence, which has critical limitations. Failure to attend to the full range of social relationships limits our ability to understand the social context of health and well-being. To redress this failure, we will use existing ethnographic data and longitudinal demographic data from rural South Africa to develop new measures of social connection that can be used in social surveys.Project Title: Potential Economic Benefits of Reductions in Fertility
PSTC Investigators: David Weil
Funding: MacArthur Foundation
Other Research Areas: Fertility and HIV/AIDS
Description: The goal of this research project is to analyze quantitatively the economic effects of interventions that reduce fertility in developing countries. Our analysis and results will speak to long-standing, yet still unresolved debates about the relation between demographic dynamics and the trajectory of economic development.