Migration and Child Health and Development: Effects and Mechanisms

描述（由申请人提供）：世界范围内日益增长的全球化和城市化已经深刻地改变了许多社会的家庭状况。特别值得一提的是，相当一部分儿童在童年时期经历过父母移徙，要么陪伴他们的流动父母（流动儿童），要么被父母一方或双方留下（留守儿童）。移徙是一种独特的家庭过渡形式，可能对儿童的健康和发展产生重要影响。它往往通过增加收入或汇款带来可观的经济改善。但它也常常对儿童的生活产生不利影响，因为它使儿童失去父母的陪伴，或使他们面临背井离乡和适应新环境的困难。拟议的研究旨在通过分析中国（一个拥有大量流动儿童和留守儿童的国家，估计超过78名流动儿童和留守儿童）的二手数据和新的调查数据（情感、社会、行为、认知、教育和身体健康），对流动对儿童的影响提供迄今为止可用的更全面的理解；(b)儿童发展的关键因素和背景（即照料者/家庭、同伴、学校、社区）如何调解和缓和移民的影响。研究结果将有助于制定一个评价移徙与儿童健康和发展的概念和分析框架，并将补充儿童发展文献和移徙文献。拟议的研究将采用跨学科的观点，将新的技能和专业知识纳入PI以前的培训和研究

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Increasing globalization and urbanization worldwide have profoundly altered the state of the family in many societies. In particular, a sizeable fraction of children have experienced parental migration during the course of their c childhoods, either accompanying their migrant parents (migrant children) or left behind by one or both parents (left-behind children). Migration represents a distinct form of family transition and one that likely has important effects on child health and development. It often brings considerable economic improvement through increased income or remittances. But it also often adversely affects children's lives, by depriving children of parental presence or subjecting them to the difficulties of being uprooted and adapting to a new environment. The proposed research seeks to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the influences of migration on children than has been available to date, by analyzing secondary data and new survey data in China, a nation with a large number of migrant and left-behind children, estimated to be over 78 migrant children and left-behind children (emotional, social, behavioral, cognitive, educational, and physical health); and (b) how critical factors and contexts of children's development (i.e. caregivers/families, peers, schools, communities) mediate and moderate the effects of migration. The results will help develop a conceptual and analytic framework for evaluating migration and child health and development, and will add to both the child development literature and the migration literature. The proposed research will adopt an interdisciplinary perspective by integrating new skills and expertise into the PI's previous training and research in demography, sociology, and statistical methods for causal inference. The new areas of systematic training, to be obtained through specialized mentoring, formal coursework, guided readings, and seminars, include (1) developmental psychology (the spectrum of development and its process across different developmental stages from early childhood to early adulthood), (2) psychometrics and latent structure modeling (growth mixture modeling and structural equation modeling), (3) the social environment and contexts of child development (parental/familial, school, peer, and communal measures and influences), and (4) social network analysis relevant to child social development and relationships. The training will also include attention to issues related to cross-cultural developmental psychology, especially on how to conduct research and evaluate findings in different contexts. In summary, this training and research will enable the PI to launch a program of independent research at the intersection of demography and developmental psychology and pursue the new line of research on migration and child development. It will also help the PI to develop the capacity to construct a research framework and design that can inform future work and interventions in diverse settings affected by large-scale immigration or emigration. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed research will examine the effects of migration on multiple dimensions of health and development of migrant children and left-behind children in China, as well as the mediating and moderating mechanisms of the effects. Such information can inform the design of intervention programs by local governments and global development organizations to mitigate the costs while reinforcing the benefits of migration and emigration for children. The analysis of multiple developmental outcomes and the mediating and moderating mechanisms has great promise for translating scientific knowledge into intervention strategies, as it helps to uncover the specific areas of vulnerability, the specific factors (mediators) that cn be more effectively targeted, and the specific contexts and subgroups (moderators) to target to maximize the program efficacy.