Motherhood Biographies and Midlife Women's Health

摘要 研究表明，自20世纪80年代中期以来，中年妇女的健康差距不断扩大。但 这些健康梯度运作的机制尚不完全清楚。尽管大约85%的 今天的中年妇女（40-50岁）是母亲，是成为母亲的途径和背景--我们称之为 母亲传记在与健康有关的许多方面变得越来越多样化， 包括初次生育年龄、产次、生育间隔和关系状况。尽管有证据表明 母性传记的个人层面塑造了生命过程早期的孕产妇健康，其较长的 中年产妇健康的长期后果在很大程度上被忽视。此外，迄今为止的研究 未能研究中年母子关系特征（例如，关系质量（Relationship Quality） 要么解释或条件的影响，母亲传记中年妇女的健康。什么是未知 母亲传记和中年母亲背景与健康的关系 中年妇女的健康差异以及这些影响如何因教育和种族而异。的 拟议的R 01研究，母亲传记和中年妇女的健康，将是第一个 全面确定母亲传记和中年母亲背景对 中年妇女的健康状况，按教育和种族-民族分类。我们使用来自全国的代表性数据， 1979-2016年全国青年纵向研究（NLSY 79; N= 4，271名女性）。将数据 无与伦比的能力，以解决我们的研究目标，因为他们包括全国代表性的纵向 数据--家庭和健康研究的黄金标准--使我们能够从青春期开始跟踪女性 一直到50多岁，追踪母亲和健康的关键时刻。我们研究了一个全面的收集， 健康变量，以捕捉中年时发现的关键健康差异，包括与a）健康 行为，B）身体健康，C）心理和认知健康。该项目的创新之处在于， 提出了新的解决方案，以中年健康梯度的理论和检查令人困惑的难题 母亲的传记和背景作为关键途径，通过这些途径在中年对健康结果进行分层。 这一建议将在证明中年健康的风险因素和机制方面产生重大影响 差距。此外，鉴于教育和种族也与健康差距有关， 母亲，这项研究是重要的，在测试如何多样化的母亲传记的教育和种族- 族裔在扩大中年健康差距方面发挥了作用。在这一生中审视母性传记 课程结合点帮助我们更好地了解这一代人进入晚年的健康差距。因为 健康差距随着年龄的增长而扩大，确定可能的社会原因是可能的，也是必要的。 中年时的小健康问题，以改善晚年更大的健康问题。

Abstract Research shows widening health disparities among midlife women since the mid-1980s. However, the mechanisms through which these health gradients operate are not fully known. Although about 85 percent of midlife (ages 40-50) women today are mothers, the pathways to and contexts of motherhood—what we call motherhood biographies—have become increasingly diverse across many dimensions relevant to health, including age at first birth, parity, spacing of children, and relationship status. Despite evidence that each of these individual dimensions of the motherhood biography shape maternal health early in the life course, their longer- term consequences for maternal health at midlife have been largely ignored. Additionally, research to date has failed to examine whether midlife mother-child relationship characteristics (e.g., coresidence, relationship quality) either explain or condition the impact of motherhood biographies on midlife women's health. What is unknown in the scientific literature is how motherhood biographies and midlife motherhood contexts are related to health and health disparities among midlife women and how these effects vary by education and race-ethnicity. The proposed R01 study, Motherhood Biographies and Midlife Women's Health, will be the first to comprehensively determine how motherhood biographies and midlife motherhood contexts matter for midlife women's health by education and race-ethnicity. We use nationally-representative data from the 1979-2016 waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY79; N=4,271 women). The data are unmatched in their ability to address our research aims as they include nationally representative longitudinal data—the gold standard in research on family and health—and allow us to follow women from adolescence to their 50s, tracking key moments in motherhood and health. We examine a comprehensive collection of health variables in order to capture the critical heath disparities found at midlife including related to a) health behaviors, b) physical health, and c) mental and cognitive health. This project is innovative in that it presents new solutions to the perplexing puzzle of the midlife health gradient by theorizing and examining motherhood biographies and contexts as key pathways though which health outcomes are stratified at midlife. This proposal will have a significant impact in demonstrating risk factors and mechanisms for midlife health disparities. Additionally, given that education and race-ethnicity are also associated with health disparities and motherhood, this study is significant in testing how diversifying motherhood biographies by education and race- ethnicity play a role in the widening of midlife health disparities. Examining motherhood biographies at this life course juncture helps us to better understand health disparities as this generation ages into later-life. Because health disparities widen with age, it is both possible and imperative to identify the social causes of what may be small health issues in midlife in order to ameliorate larger health issues in later life.