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Philip N. Cohen, University of Maryland; 2012-013

In many urban communities, unemployment, substance misuse, violence, and mass incarceration among African-American males has reduced the number of conventional adult male role models. These role models could potentially serve as positive sources of social capital for at-risk adolescent African-American males. An understudied population of black men has a long tradition in the black community as conventional adult male role models, mentors, and social fathers for black male youth. Black male coaches have played a significant role in reducing crime and delinquency among at-risk youth as well as influencing positive youth outcomes. Yet this population of African-American men in disadvantaged communities has received little attention. Using in-depth interviews, community-based participant observations, intensive home observations, and auto-ethnography, this study found that black male coaches serve as a critical form of social capital for black male youth and single parents in high-risk neighborhoods. The results suggest that research needs to focus more on the role of coaches as mentors and in some instances social fathers who provide quality adult supervision, guidance, information, support, encouragement, and community bridges to other forms of social, human, and cultural capital for inner-city black male youth.

This chapter reviews the theoretical perspectives used to understand immigrant assimilation, the challenges to studying assimilation and current research on diverse immigrant origins and across diverse locations of settlement. The authors review recent research on the integration and involvement of immigrants and their descendants into several key structural domains: education, labor markets and residential patterns. This review also focuses on variations in these outcomes among immigrants and their descendants in diverse contexts and policy regimes with cross-national comparisons from several immigrant receiving countries. Understanding how immigrants fare and the extent to which their children and grandchildren succeed requires an examination of immigrant characteristics, the migration process and the changes that occur in the context of reception.

John P. Robinson, University of Maryland; Jonathan Gershuny, University of Oxford; 2012-006

Increasing number of studies have investigated the impact of maternal exposure to air pollution during pregnancy and adverse birth outcomes, particularly low birth weight (LBW, <2,500 g at birth) and preterm birth (PTB, <37 completed weeks of gestation). We performed a comprehensive review of the peer-reviewed literature and a meta-analysis to quantify the association between maternal exposure to particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter 2.5 and 10 μm (PM 2.5  and PM 10 ) during pregnancy and the risk of LBW and PTB. We identified 20 peer-reviewed articles providing quantitative estimate of exposure and outcome that met our selection criteria. There was significant heterogeneity between studies, particularly for findings related to PM 10  exposure (LBW,  I -squared 54%,  p  = 0.01; PTB,  I -squared = 73%,  p  < 0.01). Results from random-effect meta-analysis suggested a 9% increase in risk of LBW associated with a 10-μg/m 3  increase in PM 2.5  (combined odds ratios (OR), 1.09; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.90–1.32), but our 95% CI included the null value. We estimated a 15% increase in risk of PTB for each 10-μg/m 3  increase in PM 2.5  (combined OR, 1.15; CI, 1.14–1.16). The magnitude of risk associated with PM 10  exposure was smaller (2% per 10-μg/m 3  increase) and similar in size for both LBW and PTB, neither reaching formal statistical significance. We observed no significant publication bias, with  p  > 0.05 based on both Begg's and Egger's bias tests. Our results suggest that maternal exposure to PM, particularly PM 2.5  may have adverse effect on birth outcomes. Additional mechanistic studies are needed to understand the underlying mechanisms for this association.

John P. Robinson, University of Maryland, et al.; 2012-005

John P. Robinson, University of Maryland; William Rivers, Integrated Technical Solutions; Paul Harwood, University of North Florida; 2012-004

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between environmental changes and infectious diseases and their impact on health in environmental justice (EJ) communities. The evolution of EJ science and research is contingent upon an integrated approach that takes into account social processes and environmental changes to address the burden of infectious diseases in EJ communities. We recognize that infectious disease and environmental justice is novel and calls for more research in this area, especially as the focus of public health shifts towards an ecologic and social approach to disease prevention. We attempt to explore in further detail how environmental changes such as urbanization, agriculture, and climate variability could potentially influence pathogen dynamics, vector transmission, host susceptibility, and disease outcomes among environmental justice populations.

Faculty Associate Kevin Roy co-authors book on public policy impacts on fatherhood

Faculty Associate John Haltiwanger's paper with two Census Bureau economists challenges conventional wisdom