News

A new study published in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health by DUPRI Scholar Jen'nan Read examines whether an immigrant health advantage exists among US Whites, a group often used as a reference category in research on racial and ethnic health disparities. Using recent data from the National Health Interview Survey (2019–2022), I disaggregate non-Hispanic White adults (n = 41,752) by nativity status and use logistic regression models to assess differences in six measures of mental and physical health. The analysis includes self-reported conditions (depression, anxiety, fair/poor self-rated health) and diagnosed conditions that require interaction with the healthcare system (hypertension, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD). Foreign-born Whites have a significantly lower prevalence of each health outcome relative to US-born Whites. The immigrant health advantage remains significant for depression, anxiety, fair/poor health (i.e., self-reported conditions) and diagnosed hypertension, after adjusting for sociodemographic and healthcare characteristics. In contrast, the inclusion of these explanatory factors reduces the nativity gap in diagnosed diabetes and COPD to non-significance. Overall, the results indicate important variation in health among Whites that is missed in studies that focus on US-born Whites, alone. Scholars must continue to monitor the health of White immigrants, who are projected to grow to 20% of the US immigrant population in the years to come.

Just out of medical school in India in the late 1990s, Manoj Mohanan met an elderly patient during his residency that had a transformative effect on him. “I was in a small rural village called Kokban on the west coast of India, and I would bring this woman samples from the pharmaceutical representatives for her asthma. The medical doctor I was working with asked her for money to buy those same drugs. The woman pulled out a bag of coins, dropped them on the table, and proceeded to count out the coins. Sitting there helpless and watching her count was just more than I could take.” It was a turning point in Mohanan’s career path.

Marcos Rangel has been appointed scientific director of the North Carolina Education Research Data Center (NCERDC), housed in the Center for Child and Family Policy (CCFP). The NCERDC was created in 2001 through a partnership with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to store and manage data on the state’s public schools, school districts, students, and teachers. The data, which include information dating back to the late-1990s, are available to university researchers, nonprofit research institutions, and government agencies. In this newly established role, Rangel will develop a broader scientific agenda for the NCERDC and update the data center’s infrastructure to catalyze future research and policy drawing on the data center’s resources.

When lumped together in a broad ”white” category, health disparities within a subgroup population can be easily overlooked, says sociologist Jen’nan Read. That led her to conduct a new study on health outcomes in foreign- and native-born U.S. whites.

NextGenPop builds a new, diverse generation of population sciences students. DUPRI hosted the program June 2-15, with 21 undergraduate students enrolled from 19 colleges and universities, and many DUPRI scholars and graduate student RAs participating.

Political leanings might determine more than how people vote. This study, co-authored by Christina Gibson-Davis, explores the link between political identity and young adults' fertility desires from 1989 to 2019. Using data from a survey of 12th graders, it finds that Republicans consistently desired more children than Democrats, with the gap widening over time. Initially, differences in religiosity and gender attitudes explained these gaps, but from 2004 onwards, these factors only partially accounted for them. By 2014, Republicans had a higher likelihood of wanting more children and a lower likelihood of avoiding parenthood, a trend that continued through 2019. The study concludes that political identity has increasingly influenced fertility desires.

DUPRI scholar Sunshine Hillygus has been selected as a 2024 Andrew Carnegie Fellow. Hillygus is among twenty-eight exceptional fellows who will receive stipends of $200,000 each for research that seeks to understand how and why our society has become so polarized and how we can strengthen the forces of cohesion to fortify our democracy.

DUPRI Scholar Jenny Tung, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology and Biology, and the Director of the Department of Primate Behavior and Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology is among five Duke faculty who have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. The NAS elected a total of 120 new members and 24 new international members.

Led by DUPRI Scholar and Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology Herman Pontzer, the Population Ecology, Aging, and Health Network supports collaboration and integration of work with small-scale subsistence populations globally with projects working with rural communities in the United States. Populations in the rural U.S. and subsistence farming and foraging populations in developing countries face many of the same challenges to health aging, including access to healthcare, food insecurity, and economic uncertainty. However, research in these areas (global health and rural US health) has largely proceeded in parallel, without substantial overlap. The objective is to leverage the expertise and experience of these research communities, building a network for collaboration and integration of research programs. A wide range of approaches will be included, with the common theme that researchers assess ecological factors (environmental and/or social determinants) influencing population health and aging.

Several DUPRI students attended the Population Association of America (PAA) Annual Meeting in Columbus, Ohio from April 18-20. There they presented their research at both panels and poster sessions and serving as panel discussants. Below we summarize their work.