Progress and future challenges in aging and diversity research in the United States.

In 2016, the UC Davis Latino Aging Research Resource Center and UC Davis Alzheimer's Disease Center brought together experts from across the country to consolidate current knowledge and identify future directions in aging and diversity research. This report disseminates the research priorities that emerged from this conference, building on an earlier Gerontological Society of America preconference. We review key racial/ethnic differences in cognitive aging and dementia and identify current knowledge gaps in the field. We advocate for a systems-level framework for future research whereby environmental, sociocultural, behavioral, neuropathological, genetic, and psychometric levels of analysis are examined together to identify pathways and mechanisms that influence disparities. We then discuss steps to increase the recruitment and retention of racial/ethnic minorities in aging studies, as none of the recommendations will be possible without strong collaboration between racial/ethnic minority communities and researchers. This approach is consistent with the National Institute on Aging Health Disparities Research Framework.

Publicly Funded Family Planning: Lessons From California, Before And After The ACA's Medicaid Expansion.

California has a long tradition of providing publicly funded family planning services to low-income residents. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) increased contraceptive coverage in 2012, and in January 2014 it extended Medicaid eligibility by increasing the income cut-off from 100 percent to 138 percent of the federal poverty level and allowing individuals without dependent children to enroll. We assessed the impact of the ACA's Medicaid expansion on low-income Californian women's receipt of health insurance and needed health care, including contraceptive counseling and prescription contraception, using data for the period 2013-16 from 4,567 women ages 18-44 with low incomes (less than 138 percent of poverty). After the ACA expansion, the proportion of uninsured low-income women in California decreased significantly, while the share enrolled in Medicaid increased. However, the proportion of the women who reported using health care and family planning services remained unchanged. Despite the ACA's explicit attention to contraceptive services, improvements in the delivery of family planning services have yet to be fully realized in California.

Dispositional optimism: a psychological resource for Mexican-origin mothers experiencing economic stress.

Dispositional optimism is believed to be an important psychological resource that buffers families against the deleterious consequences of economic adversity. Using data from a longitudinal study of Mexican-origin families (N = 674), we tested a family stress model specifying that maternal dispositional optimism and economic pressure affect maternal internalizing symptoms, which, in turn, affects parenting behaviors and children's social adjustment. As predicted, maternal optimism and economic pressure had both independent and interactive effects on maternal internalizing symptoms, and the effects of these variables on changes over time in child social adjustment were mediated by nurturant and involved parenting. The findings replicate and extend previous research on single-parent African American families (Taylor, Larsen-Rife, Conger, Widaman, & Cutrona, 2010), and demonstrate the generalizability of the positive benefits of dispositional optimism in another ethnic group and type of family structure.