Nonstandard Maternal Work Schedules & Child Health in Impoverished Families

描述(由申请人提供)：非标准的产妇工作时间或存在于周一至周五之外的时间，8-5标准干扰儿童在生命的第一年的最佳健康和发育。贫困家庭的父母，尤其是母亲，在需要非标准时间表的工作中比例过高，这引发了人们的担忧，即贫困儿童已经面临健康状况不佳的风险，他们的健康和福祉面临着额外的威胁，破坏了上学准备，并为一生中的健康差距奠定了基础。到目前为止，研究还没有检查非标准的产妇工作时间给贫困儿童的健康和福祉带来的额外风险。这个项目的目标是了解不标准的产妇工作时间表对贫困儿童的身体和情感健康的威胁。为了实现这一目标并为应对这一威胁提供潜在的政策解决方案，该项目将从随机选择的经济困难婴儿母亲(N=450)的社区队列中收集预期数据，以：1)描绘贫困儿童在30个月时身体健康和情感健康的差异，这些儿童的母亲在第一年有非标准工作时间与母亲有标准工作时间的儿童相比；2)量化育儿做法和母亲幸福的差异在多大程度上通过母亲的工作时间解释贫困儿童身体健康和情感健康的差异；3)在婴儿出生第一年的非标准工作时间的母亲中，确定作为贫困儿童保护因素的个人、家庭和社会因素。该项目将在孩子3个月大的时候招募母婴双胞胎，并一直跟踪到孩子30个月大。与每个具体目标相关的假设将通过拟合线性混合效应模型来检验，以说明随时间推移评估的结果之间的相关性。项目成果将提供必要的信息，以帮助保护处于危险中的儿童。 公共卫生相关性：该项目调查了母亲在非标准日程表工作中的就业在多大程度上预测了贫困儿童30个月后身体健康和情绪健康的差异。记录非标准的产妇工作时间是否损害了儿童的福祉，并了解其发生的机制，这是构思、设计和实施保护儿童的政策的重要第一步，特别是那些生活在贫困中的儿童，他们已经面临健康状况不佳的风险。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Nonstandard maternal work schedules or those that exist outside the Monday thru Friday, 8 - 5 norm interfere with optimal child health and development during the first years of life. Parents in impoverished families, particularly mothers, are over-represented in jobs requiring a nonstandard schedule raising concerns that poor children, who are already at risk for poor health outcomes, face additional threats to health and well-being that undermines school readiness and creates a foundation for health disparities across the lifespan. Research to date has not examined the added risk that nonstandard maternal work schedules place on poor children's health and well-being. The goal of this project is to understand the threat of nonstandard maternal work schedules to poor children's physical and emotional well-being. To achieve this goal and inform potential policy solutions to the threat, this project will collect prospective data from a randomly selected community-based cohort of economically disadvantaged mothers of infants (N=450) to: 1) Delineate differences in physical health and emotional well- being at 30 months among children living in poverty whose mothers had a nonstandard schedule job in the first year relative to those whose mothers had a standard work schedule; 2) Quantify the degree to which variation in parenting practices and maternal well-being explain differences in the physical health and emotional well- being of children living in poverty by maternal work schedules; and 3) Identify individual, familial, and social factors that serve as protective factors for children living in poverty among mothers working a nonstandard work schedule during their infants' first year of life.. The project will recruit mother-infant dyads when children are 3 months of age and follow them until children are 30 months. Hypotheses related to each specific aim will be tested by fitting linear mixed effects models to account for the correlation among outcomes assessed over time. Project results will provide needed information to help protect at risk children. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The project examines the extent to which mothers' employment in a nonstandard schedule job predicts differences in impoverished children's physical health and emotional well-being at 30 months. Documenting whether nonstandard maternal work schedules undermine children's well-being and understanding the mechanisms by which it occurs are important first steps in conceiving, designing, and implementing policies that protect children, particularly those living in poverty who are already at risk for poor health outcomes.