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Sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth experience high rates of victimization leading to health disparities. Community size and community climate are associated with health outcomes among SGM youth; however, we lack studies that include them as covariates alongside victimization to understand their collective impact on health. This study utilized minority stress theory to understand how community context shapes experiences of victimization and health among SGM youth. SGM youth in one Midwestern U.S. state completed an online survey ( n  = 201) with measures of physical health, mental health, community context, and victimization. Data were analyzed via multiple regression using a path analysis framework. Results indicate that perceived climate was associated with mental, but not physical, health; Community size was unrelated to health outcomes. Victimization mediated the association between community climate and mental health. Findings are discussed in light of current literature and implications for research and practice are shared.

This study investigates the relationship between maternal employment and state-to-state differences in childcare cost and mean school day length. Pairing state-level measures with an individual-level sample of prime working-age mothers from the American Time Use Survey (2005–2014; n = 37,993), we assess the multilevel and time-varying effects of childcare  costs  and  school  day  length  on  maternal  full-time  and  part-time  employment  and  childcare  time.  We  find  mothers’ odds of full-time employment are lower and part-time employment higher in states with expensive childcare and shorter school days. Mothers spend more time caring for children in states where childcare is more expensive and as childcare costs increase. Our results suggest that expensive childcare and short school days are important barriers to maternal employment and, for childcare costs, result in greater investments in childcare time. Politicians engaged in national debates about federal childcare policies should look to existing state childcare structures for policy guidance. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023119860277

Research has documented a negative association between women’s educational attainment and early sexual intercourse, union formation, and pregnancy. However, the implications that school progression relative to age may have for the timing and order of such transitions are poorly understood. In this article, I argue that educational attainment has different implications depending on a student’s progression through school grades relative to her age. Using month of birth and age-at-school-entry policies to estimate the effect of advanced school progression by age, I show that it accelerates the occurrence of family formation and sexual onset among teenage women in Mexico. Focusing on girls aged 15–17 interviewed by a national survey, I find that those who progress through school ahead of their birth cohort have a higher probability of having had sex, been pregnant, and cohabited by the time of interview. I argue that this pattern of behaviors is explained by experiences that lead them to accelerate their transition to adulthood compared with same-age students with fewer completed school grades, such as exposure to relatively older peers in school and completing academic milestones earlier in life. Among girls who got pregnant, those with an advanced school progression by age are more likely to engage in drug use, alcohol consumption, and smoking before conception; more likely to have pregnancy-related health complications; and less likely to attend prenatal care visits. Thus, an advanced school progression by age has substantial implications for the health and well-being of young women, with potential intergenerational consequences.

A growing body of sociological research has shown that racial identification is not only fluid, but crucially depends on other individual- and societal-level factors. When such factors are also associated with socioeconomic outcomes such as earnings, estimates of the disadvantage experienced by individuals because of how they identify racially obtained from standard regression models may be biased. We illustrate this potential bias using data from a large-scale survey conducted by the Mexican census bureau. This survey is the first by the government agency since the country’s independence to include a question on black identification. We find evidence of a substantial bias in estimates of racial disadvantage. Results from our initial models treating racial self-identification as an exogenous predictor indicate that black men have higher earnings than non-black men. However, when we use an instrumental variables model that treats racial self-identification as endogenous, that is, as a function of the same unobserved characteristics as individuals’ earnings, we find a significant negative effect of black identification on earnings. While previous studies have acknowledged the endogeneity of race, ours is the first to explicitly model racial self-identification as an endogenous predictor to obtain an unbiased estimate of its effect on individuals’ socioeconomic conditions.

Black sexual and gender minorities (SGM) are at greater risk for HIV compared to their White, cisgender, heterosexual counterparts. Linkage to culturally sensitive health care is, therefore, pivotal for HIV prevention and treatment of Black SGM. Unfortunately, social and structural challenges undermine Black SGM individuals' abilities to obtain adequate health care services, indicating a need to understand Black SGM perceptions of health care. To address this gap, we interviewed Black men who have sex with men and transwomen about their experiences with health care providers. Participants discussed needs and concerns, including provider SGM identity diversity and education; assumptions, judgment, stigma, and discrimination; and ability to establish a personal bond, trust, and familiarity. Black SGM indicated that providers often did not meet their needs in different ways regarding their SGM identities. Findings suggest a need for provider cultural sensitivity education programs that address the needs of Black SGM in health care.

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth experience high rates of victimization leading to health disparities. Community size and community climate are associated with health outcomes among SGM youth; however, we lack studies that include them as covariates alongside victimization to understand their collective impact on health. This study utilized minority stress theory to understand how community context shapes experiences of victimization and health among SGM youth. SGM youth in one Midwestern U.S. state completed an online survey ( n = 201) with measures of physical health, mental health, community context, and victimization. Data were analyzed via multiple regression using a path analysis framework. Results indicate that perceived climate was associated with mental, but not physical, health; Community size was unrelated to health outcomes. Victimization mediated the association between community climate and mental health. Findings are discussed in light of current literature and implications for research and practice are shared.

The past three decades have seen the advent of major transformations in the Indian economy. The economy has achieved average growth rates of 5–9%, education has risen sharply for both men and women, fertility rates have declined, and infrastructure facilities, particularly access to electricity, cooking gas and piped water, have improved. All these factors are expected to reduce the demand for women’s time spent in domestic chores and increase their opportunities for paid work. Paradoxically, however, the National Sample Surveys document a substantial decline in women’s work participation rates (WPRs), particularly for rural women. Optimistic interpretation of these trends suggests that increasing prosperity accounts for women’s labour force withdrawal. For young women, rising school and college enrolment is incompatible with demands of the workforce. For both young and older women, rising prosperity allows for withdrawal from economic activities to focus on domestic duties. Pessimistic interpretations of these trends suggest that it is absence of suitable jobs rather than women’s withdrawal from the labour force that accounts for declining female work participation. A third explanation focuses on increasing measurement errors in work participation data from the National Sample Surveys. This paper examines these diverse explanations using data from National Sample Surveys and India Human Development Surveys for 2004–2005 and 2011–2012 and finds that: (1) Decline in rural women’s work participation recorded by National Sample Surveys may be overstated; (2) supply factors explain a relatively small proportion of the decline in women’s work participation rates; (3) public policies such as improvement and transportation facilities and MGNREGS that enhance work opportunities for women are associated with increased participation by women in the work force.

Background Prior research has documented a strong association between cigarette and marijuana use among young adults; it is critical to study patterns and risk factors for co-use. Methods Appended, cross-sectional National Health and Nutrition  Examination Survey (NHANES) data were used to assess prevalence and correlates of cigarette and marijuana co-use among young adults (ages 21–30) over a 10-year period (2005–2014). Respondents (unweighted sample = 4,948) were classified into four categories regarding past-month behavior: neither use, cigarette-only use, marijuana-only use, and co-use of both. Regression models were computed to predict these categories using three waves of NHANES (unweighted sample = 3,073). Results Prevalence of past-month cigarette use decreased from 30.9% in 2005–2006 to 23.7% in 2013–2014 (p = 0.024) while past-month marijuana use (average 18.0%) and past-month co-use (average 9.8%) remained stable during this time. Co-use differed significantly by gender (p < 0.001; average 12.9% men, 6.8% women). Co-users were less likely to be married, more likely to endorse non-Hispanic black racial identity, more likely to have engaged in non-marijuana drug use in their lifetime and more likely to drink alcohol monthly than cigarette-only users. Co-users were more likely to have depressive symptoms, ever use non-marijuana drugs, live with a smoker, and initiate marijuana at a younger age than marijuana-only users. Conclusions Co-use of cigarettes and marijuana remained stable but high over a ten-year period; understanding the unique characteristics, living situations, experiences, and substance use behaviors of co-users can contribute to more effective, tailored prevention and education strategies to reduce the burden of comorbid cigarette and marijuana use.

This article presents an interview with environmental economist Maureen L. Cropper. Maureen completed her Ph.D. at Cornell University and subsequently held positions at the University of California, Riverside, and the University of Southern California. At Riverside, she moved from monetary economics to environmental economics. She then landed at the University of Maryland, where she is a still a professor. She has taken on leadership roles in numerous institutional settings, including the US National Academy of Sciences and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Science Advisory Board. Her contributions to environmental economics have been groundbreaking and extensive. Together with many collaborators—including former students and colleagues at the University of Maryland, World Bank, EPA, and Resources for the Future—Maureen has produced a body of work that spans theory, methods, and empirical applied economics. Her work covers the environment, energy, climate change, and transportation in both the United States and developing countries.

OBJECTIVE: Research on the heterogeneity in drinking patterns of urban minorities within a socioecological framework is rare. The purpose of this study was to explore multiple, distinct patterns of drinking from adolescence to young adulthood in a sample of urban minority youth and to examine the influence of neighborhood, family, and peers on these trajectories. METHOD: Data are from a longitudinal study of 584 (56% male) primarily Black (87%) youth who were first sampled in childhood based on their residence in low-income neighborhoods in Baltimore City and followed up annually through age 26. Data were analyzed using group-based trajectory modeling and multinomial logistic regression. RESULTS: Modeling revealed six trajectories from ages 14 to 26: abstainer, experimenter, adult increasing, young adult increasing, adolescent limited, and adolescent increasing. Neighborhood disadvantage was a risk factor for drinking regardless of the timing of onset. Perceptions of availability, peer drinking, and parental approval for drinking were risk factors for underage drinking trajectories, whereas parental supervision was a significant protective factor. Positive social activities in neighborhoods was protective against increased drinking, whereas a decline in perceptions of peer drinking was associated with adolescent-limited drinking. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings uniquely highlight the importance of developing interventions involving parents for urban minority youth for whom family is particularly relevant in deterring underage drinking. Perhaps most importantly, our data suggest that interventions that support positive social activities in disadvantaged neighborhoods are protective against adolescent drinking and altering perceptions of peer drinking may reduce adolescent drinking among low-income, urban minority youth.