PARENTAL RESOURCES AND CHILD WELLBEING

该项目的总体目标是研究父母资源如何影响儿童的福祉，通过儿童的健康状况及其认知、社会和情感发展来衡量。我们的方法是研究父母资源的三个广泛定义的方面——经济地位、家庭结构和父母健康（包括精神和身体）——是如何相互关联的。然后，我们将研究这些父母资源如何影响子女接受的养育质量（纪律、温暖、监督和认知刺激）和物质资源（例如，家庭学习材料、食品安全、邻里安全以及获得医疗保健）。最后，我们将定义所有这些“输入”如何反过来影响儿童的结果。作为一个具体的“个案研究”，我们将研究儿童肥胖的决定因素，这是一种可预防的儿童健康结果，是成人肥胖的前兆。这项研究将利用《脆弱家庭和儿童福利研究》新收集的数据，这项新调查跟踪了来自美国15个州20个城市的3675名未婚父母所生的孩子和1125名已婚父母所生的孩子，从出生到4岁。这项调查的一个关键优势是，它追踪并收集了父亲的信息，包括那些不与孩子住在一起的父亲。利用脆弱家庭的数据，我们将能够研究父亲在儿童健康和发展结果中的作用。脆弱家庭的数据将由收入动态小组研究和国家健康访谈调查的数据补充。这项研究的结果将为儿童福祉的决定因素以及父母资源影响儿童结果的机制提供有价值的信息。

The overall aim of this project is to study how parental resources affect children's wellbeing, as measured by children's health status and their cognitive, social, and emotional development. Our approach will be to examine how three broadly defined aspects of parental resources - economic status, family structure, and parental health (both mental and physical) - are related to each other. We will then examine how these parental resources affect the quality of parenting (discipline, warmth, supervision, and cognitive stimulation) and material resources (e.g., home learning materials, food security, neighborhood safety, and access to medical care) that children receive. Finally we will define how all of these "inputs," in turn, affect children's outcomes. As a specific "case study" we will study the determinants of childhood obesity, a preventable child health outcome that is the precursor of adult obesity. The study will utilize newly collected data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a new survey that follows birth cohorts of 3,675 children born to unwed parents, and 1,125 children born to married parents, from twenty US cities in fifteen states, from birth to age four. A key advantage of this survey is that it tracks and collects information from fathers, including those who do not live with their children. Using the Fragile Families data, we will be able to study the role of fathers in children's health and developmental outcomes. The Fragile Families data will be supplemented with data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the National Health Interview Survey. The results of this research will provide valuable information on the determinants of children's wellbeing, and the mechanisms through which parental resources affect children's outcomes.