Migration and Child Health and Development: Effects and Mechanisms

描述(申请人提供)：全球日益全球化和都市化已经深刻地改变了许多社会的家庭状况。特别是，相当大一部分儿童在童年期间经历了父母的移徙，要么陪伴着他们的移徙父母(移徙儿童)，要么被父母中的一方或双方留下(留守儿童)。移徙是家庭过渡的一种独特形式，可能对儿童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相当大的经济改善。但它也经常对儿童的生活产生不利影响，因为它剥夺了儿童的父母在场，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的次要数据和新的调查数据，更全面地了解移徙对儿童的影响；以及(B)儿童发展的关键因素和背景(即照顾者/家庭、同伴、学校、社区)如何调节和调节移徙的影响。这些成果将有助于制定一个评价移徙和儿童健康与发展的概念和分析框架，并将为儿童发展文献和移徙文献增添内容。拟议的研究将采用跨学科的观点，将新的技能和专门知识整合到国际和平研究所以前的培训和研究中。 人口学、社会学和统计学的因果推断方法。将通过专门辅导、正规课程、指导读物和研讨会获得的新的系统培训领域包括：(1)发展心理学(从幼儿到成年早期不同发展阶段的发展光谱及其过程)，(2)心理测量学和潜在结构建模(生长混合模型和结构方程模型)，(3)儿童发展的社会环境和背景(父母/家庭、学校、同伴、社区措施和影响)，以及(4)与儿童社会发展和关系有关的社会网络分析。培训还将包括关注与跨文化发展心理学有关的问题，特别是如何在不同的背景下进行研究和评估研究结果。总而言之，这种培训和研究将使PI能够在人口学和发展心理学的交叉点上启动一项独立研究计划，并追求关于移徙和儿童发展的新研究路线。它还将帮助国际和平研究所发展能力，以建立一个研究框架和设计，以便为未来在受大规模移民或移民影响的不同环境中开展的工作和干预措施提供信息。 公共卫生相关性：本研究将考察流动人口对中国流动儿童和留守儿童健康和发展的多个维度的影响，以及这些影响的中介和调节机制。这些信息可以为地方政府和全球发展组织设计干预方案提供信息，以降低成本，同时加强移民和移民给儿童带来的好处。对多种发展成果以及调节和调节机制的分析有助于将科学知识转化为干预战略，因为它有助于发现脆弱性的具体领域、可以更有效地针对的特定因素(调节者)以及为使方案效果最大化而针对的特定背景和子群体(调节者)。

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.