Unemployment and underemployment have adverse mental and physical health consequences, such as increased stress and depression. Health damaging behaviors like unhealthy eating, smoking, and alcohol use may be used to cope, contributing to chronic disease risk. In this adverse economic climate,...

We use data from the U.S. Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study to test whether maternal religious attendance is protective against low birth weight. Building on previous research, we also consider the mediating influence of mental health, cigarette use, alcohol use, illicit drug use, poor...

There is strong consensus in the research literature that adolescent and adult men who report same-sex sexual orientations, identities, and behaviors are at higher risk for suicide. Recent studies of general adolescent suicide risk have identified developmental trajectories that peak during the...

Variations in physician practice are pervasive and costly, and may be harmful. The objective of much policy in the West is to increase the interconnectedness of physicians, furthering the transfer of information and thus reducing variation.

This article examines the reflexive, biosocial nature of genomic meaning making around race, drawing on discourse analysis of 732 articles on genomics and race published from the years 1986–2010, in-depth interviews with 36 of the world’s most elite genomics researchers, interviews with 15...

Growing evidence supports the hypothesis that income inequality within a nation influences health outcomes net of the effect of any given household’s absolute income. We tested the hypothesis that state-level income inequality in the United States is associated with increased family burden for...

A large literature on immigrant health in the U.S. has shown that immigrants tend to be healthier and live longer than both individuals who remain in their countries of origin and natives of their host countries who are of the same race or ethnicity. However, this immigrant health advantage...

Studies of social determinants of weight and health in the US have typically relied on self-reported education and incomes as the two primary measures of socioeconomic status (SES). The assessed value of one's home, an important component of wealth, may be a better measure of the underlying SES...