Subscriptions
If you wish to be added to the PRInformation mailing list and receive a hard copy of the newsletter twice per year, or if you need to update your address, please fill out this form.
Email Notification
If you would like to receive email notification that the latest issue of PRInformation is available online, enter your email address in the blank below and click the Submit button.
Editor:
Tonya Allen
allen@pop.psu.edu
PRInformation
Spring 2008
Note from the Director
Biosocial models of demographic behavior and health are increasingly of interest to social demographers, who draw on such fields as behavioral endocrinology, behavioral genetics, and evolutionary psychology. As recently as a decade ago, there was some resistance to incorporating biological variables into social and demographic studies. However, the accumulation of empirical evidence supporting links between biological and social processes, advances in the collection of biomarker data in large-scale studies, and the incorporation of environmental challenges into conceptual models have contributed to an explosion of interest in biosocial perspectives on demographic behavior and health.
A number of PRI faculty conduct research linking biological, psychological, sociological, and environmental variables. One very active area of research within the center is the study of links between stress, hormones, and health outcomes. David Almeida (Human Development and Family Studies) has studied the effects of stress on health and well-being in several projects, including Changes in Daily Stress and Well-Being (NIA), Personality and Well-Being Trajectories in Adulthood (NIA), and Work Stress, Health and Parenting among Hotel Employees (NICHD). His most recent NIA award, Daily Stress and Well-Being During Adulthood, is a three-year project which analyzes data from the first national longitudinal study of daily stressors and well-being, the National Study of Daily Experiences. The project combines biomarkers and self-reports of stress to study individual and group differences in change in well-being during adulthood. In particular, the study focuses on how concurrent and cumulative exposures to daily stressors disrupt diurnal rhythms of salivary cortisol and lead to downstream health outcomes.
Another group of PRI faculty--Alan Booth (Sociology, Human Development and Family Studies), Ann C. Crouter (Human Development and Family Studies), Douglas Granger (Biobehavioral Health), David Johnson (Sociology, Human Development and Family Studies) and Susan McHale (Human Development and Family Studies)--has been conducting research on the links between hormones, parenting and child development. A longitudinal investigation of 400 families whose members were interviewed and provided saliva has been the source of data for these investigations. One study finds that the association between testosterone and adolescent behavior problems is not expressed when offspring have high quality relationships with their parents but is expressed if the relationships are poor. Another study reveals that high testosterone is associated with poor marital relationships when husbands' role overload is high but with positive marital quality when role overload is low. Adolescent males with high testosterone have positive relationships with peers if they also have a good relationship with their mother. If the mother-adolescent relationship is poor, testosterone's link with peer relationships disappears. In addition to emphasizing the role of testosterone, this ongoing study is investigating other hormones (e.g., cortisol and estradiol) as well.
PRI researchers are also studying how genetic factors interrelate with demographic variables to influence health trajectories. George Vogler (Biobehavioral Health), a co-investigator in the Center on Population Health and Aging and director of the Center for Developmental and Health Genetics, received funding for a five-year project, Training in Genetics of Complex Behaviors in Aging, to train interdisciplinary scholars who can advance and apply the concepts and methods of quantitative and molecular genetics to problems of health-related and functional behaviors in late adulthood and old age. Hobart H. Cleveland III (Human Development and Family Studies), a new affiliate who comes to Penn State from Texas Tech University, received his Ph.D. from University of Arizona in 1998. His research interests include gene-environment interactions and correlations, violence and delinquency, and substance use and addictions.
Study of the interrelationships among biological, social, and behavioral variables is a national trend that is evident not only in federally funded research initiatives but in initiatives within many universities. Penn State is among those that have taken steps such as hiring faculty in this area and providing equipment, facilities, and seed money to build relevant research programs. Penn State now has a critical mass of faculty and students from multiple departments who integrate biology with demographic topics. Drawing on this critical mass, PRI has recently formed a Biosocial Interest Group, headed by Alan Booth, to provide a forum for Penn State researchers to discuss current research and generate new ideas for future projects. One of PRI's goals is to be at the forefront of population centers in the area of biosocial research.
Nancy Landale
Director
Last modified: 05/09/08 | Contact Webmaster
