Racial Disparities in Blood Pressure Trajectories of Preterm Children: The Role of Family and Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status.

Racial disparities in cardiovascular disease mortality in the United States remain substantial. However, the childhood roots of these disparities are not well understood. In the current study, we examined racial differences in blood pressure trajectories across early childhood in a sample of African-American and European-American low-birth-weight preterm infants. Family and neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES), measured at baseline, were also examined as explanations for subsequent group disparities. Analyses focused on 407 African-American and 264 European-American children who participated in the Infant Health and Development Program, a US longitudinal study of preterm children born in 1985. Blood pressure was assessed on 6 occasions between the ages of 24 and 78 months, in 1987-1992. Across this age range, the average rate of change in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure was greater among African-American children than among European-American children. Neighborhood SES explained 29% and 24% of the racial difference in the average rate of change in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, respectively, whereas family SES did not account for group differences. The findings show that racial differences in blood pressure among preterm children emerge in early childhood and that neighborhood SES accounts for a portion of racial disparities.

School readiness and later achievement.

Using 6 longitudinal data sets, the authors estimate links between three key elements of school readiness--school-entry academic, attention, and socioemotional skills--and later school reading and math achievement. In an effort to isolate the effects of these school-entry skills, the authors ensured that most of their regression models control for cognitive, attention, and socioemotional skills measured prior to school entry, as well as a host of family background measures. Across all 6 studies, the strongest predictors of later achievement are school-entry math, reading, and attention skills. A meta-analysis of the results shows that early math skills have the greatest predictive power, followed by reading and then attention skills. By contrast, measures of socioemotional behaviors, including internalizing and externalizing problems and social skills, were generally insignificant predictors of later academic performance, even among children with relatively high levels of problem behavior. Patterns of association were similar for boys and girls and for children from high and low socioeconomic backgrounds.

Cumulative, human capital, and psychological risk in the context of early intervention: links with IQ at ages 3, 5, and 8.

This article examines the effects of risks for a sample of low birth weight children (2,001 to 2,500 g and family income-to-needs at 250% of the poverty threshold or less; n = 228) using data from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP, an experiment testing the efficacy of early intervention). Cognitive test scores (IQ) are assessed at 3, 5, and 8 years of age. Links with risks at each age point are examined using three different models-cumulative, human capital, and psychological risks. Similar decrements in IQ scores are found at all ages for the cumulative and human capital models but not for the psychological risk model. Treatment effects are found at 3 years of age (when the intervention ended) for all levels of risk and for all models. Sustained effects of the treatment were found at 5 and 8 years of age for children with moderate levels of human capital risk but were not found for any levels of psychological risk. Implications for early childhood intervention programs are discussed.