Drawing from insights into the variability of complex biologic systems we propose that the health of human populations reflects the interrelationship between underlying vulnerabilities (determined by population-level social and economic factors; e.g., income distribution) and capacities...

Objectives Tanzania, a country with high maternal mortality, has many primary health facilities yet has a low rate of facility deliveries. This study estimated the contribution of individual and community factors in explaining variation in the use of health facilities for childbirth in rural...

The social environment plays a considerable role in determining major psychiatric disorders. Emerging evidence suggests that features of the social environment modify gene expression independently of the primary DNA sequence through epigenetic processes. Accordingly, dysfunction of epigenetic...

Lifetime patterns of income may be an important driver of alcohol use. In this study, we evaluated the relationship between long-term and short-term measures of income and the relative odds of abstaining, drinking lightly-moderately and drinking heavily. We used data from the US Panel Study on...

Black adolescents in the US are less likely to use alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco compared with non-Hispanic Whites, but little is known about the consistency of these racial/ethnic differences in substance use across the lifecourse. Understanding lifecourse patterning of substance use is...

Exposure to natural disasters has been linked to a range of adverse outcomes, including mental health problems (e.g., posttraumatic stress symptoms [PTSS], depression), declines in role functioning (e.g., occupational difficulties), and physical health problems (e.g., somatic complaints)....

High rates of mental health (MH) problems have been documented among disaster relief workers. However, few workers utilize MH services, and predictors of service use among this group remain unexplored. The purpose of this study was to explore associations between predisposing, illness-related,...