Research

IDHP Research Summaries

Guide to Navigating this Research Archive

Here you will find research articles published by IDHP researchers that are related to our primary scientific foci: the interconnected mental health of children and their caregivers, the intergenerational impact of stressful experiences on mental and physical health, and interventions and other buffers that support family wellness. 

 

In the right sidebar, you can search this archive by research topic, as well as by research study (you can read about each study on the Current Projects page). Each archive entry has a simple summary, the full scientific abstract, and a link to the full article. Most of the articles in this research archive are available open access (i.e., you can access it without a subscription). If you are trying to access an article and aren't able to see the full version, please email us at [email protected], and we would be happy to assist. 

 

 

October 23, 2018
Biomarkers
Childhood adversity

The biological embedding of early-life socioeconomic status and family adversity in children's genome-wide DNA methylation

Researchers aimed to study how childhood social adversity affects health across the lifespan by examining changes in child DNA methylation (when a 'tag' is added to DNA, turning it on or off). They found that family income, parental education, and family psychosocial adversity were associated with DNA methylation in unique sets of gene sequences related to immune and developmental regulation functions. These findings support the use of DNA methylation as a biomarker for the long-term health effects of childhood social experiences.