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Program News | Program News Archive
Devon Thacker and Stef Mollborn presented research based on a collaborative project with Janet Jacobs and Leith Lombas at a conference in early October, 2009, organized by the Colorado Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Parenting, and Prevention, called Raising the Bar: Putting the Promise to Practice in Adolescent Reproductive Health and Supporting Young Families. The presentation was titled, "Colorado Teen Parents Talk about the Resources They Have, Want, and Need."
On January 23, 2009, research findings from interviews with teenage moms and dads by Janet Jacobs, Stef Mollborn, Devon Thacker, Leith Lombas, and Nicole Moore were presented to Colorado legislators at a forum at the state Capitol on pregnant and parenting teens' access to education. Undergraduate SOCY major and McNair Scholar Nicole Moore led a focus group and a panel of teenage moms. Stef Mollborn led a listening session for direct service providers and joined a panel of "voices from the field."
Stefanie Mollborn, Paula Fomby, and Jeff Dennis presented "Racial/Ethnic Differences in Family Structure Effects on Early Development" at the National Council on Family Relations 2008 annual meeting in Little Rock, AR in November.
Richard Jessor has joined the Advisory Board of the Urban Population and Health Dynamics (UPHD) Research Program at the African Population and Health Research Center in Nairobi, Kenya. One facet of the UPHD Research Program, funded by the Wellcome Trust, is concerned with the transition to adulthood among youth in the Nairobi informal settlements (slums), and that longitudinal study is using measures developed here in IBS by Jessor and his colleagues. Jessor participated in the advisory board meeting held in Nairobi August 11-14. He will be returning to Nairobi to consult with members of the transition to adulthood research team, November 17-21.
IBS was well-represented at the Add Health Users Conference at NIH in late July. Jason Boardman was a coauthor for one of the plenary presentations, "Genetic Studies of Substance Use in Add Health: Progress and Pitfalls." Two papers by other IBS folks were presented in the session called "Sexuality: Contributors to Risk and Well-being": "The Correlates and Consequences of Incongruence in Parents' and Teens' Reports of Teens' Sexual Activity" by Stefanie Mollborn and Bethany Everett, and "The Dynamic Relationships between Sexual Minority Status and Health: A Longitudinal Analysis" by Bethany Everett. Bethany's presentation was especially well-received and generated a lot of interest from researchers and funding agencies.
Several Health and Society people gave presentations this summer:
Stefanie Mollborn and Elizabeth Morningstar. “Investigating the Relationship between Teenage Childbearing and Depression Using Longitudinal Evidence.” American Sociological Association 2008 annual meeting, Boston, MA.
Paula Fomby, Stefanie Mollborn, and Christie Sennott. “Racial and Ethnic Differences in the Effect of Family Instability on Adolescents' Behavior. American Sociological Association 2008 annual meeting, Boston, MA. (Project funded by a POP program pilot grant)
Stefanie Mollborn and Angela Hoekstra. “Assessing a New Pedagogical Model for Clicker-Based Instruction in the Social Sciences.” Society for the Study of Social Problems 2008 annual meeting, Boston, MA.
Stefanie Mollborn and Angela Hoekstra. “Strategies for Using Clickers in the Social Sciences and Humanities.” Colorado Learning and Teaching with Technology 2008 Conference, Boulder, CO.
Congratulations to Christie Sennott, who won the 2008 Sociology AIDS Network (SAN) Scholarly Activity Award. The proposal she submitted describes a project aimed at investigating the relationship between gender, adolescent sexual behavior and fertility, and marriage on HIV/AIDS risk in rural South Africa utilizing a mixed-methods approach. The award was presented at the ASA 2008 meetings in Boston.
Jeff Dennis presented "Predictive Factors of Positive Birth Outcomes Among Adolescent Mothers," a paper co-authored with Stefanie Mollborn, at the Southwestern Social Science Annual meeting in Las Vegas, NV on March 13, 2008.
Christie Sennott is to be awarded a 2008 Beverly Sears Award from the CU Graduate School for her future research project entitled "The Impact of Childbearing on Partner Selection as a Regulation Strategy for HIV/AIDS Exposure in South Africa."
Christie Sennott gave a presentation entitled “I’d Rather be Dead’: An Investigation of the Personal and Societal Benefits of Housing People who are Chronically Homeless” at the Midwest Sociological Society; March 2008 Annual Meeting in St. Louis, MO.
Short Course on Biodemography, June 11-13, 2007: The CU Population Center with support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Institute of Behavioral Science, the Institute for Behavioral Genetics, and the Department of Sociology, just completed a three-day short course on the topic of Biodemography. Jason Boardman organized the course, which included a review and discussion of current substantive contributions in the literature, instruction on the collection and use of biomarkers in demographic research, and methodological training in the statistical analysis of biosocial interactions. Faculty for this workshop included Eileen Crimmins (University of Southern California), Noreen Goldman (Princeton University), Maxine Weinstein (Georgetown University), and Tom Johnson, Matt McQueen, Michael Stallings, and Deqing Wu (Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado). Students were comprised of graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty from 20 universities across the country. More information can be found by visiting the course website: http://www.colorado.edu/ibs/cupc/short_courses/biodemography/.
Richard Rogers presented "Sex Differentials in Mortality," to the Department of Demography and Organizational Studies and the Institute for Demographic and Socioeconomic Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio, June 5, 2007.
This research -- conducted with Bethany Everett, Jarron Saint Onge, Patrick Krueger, and Bob Hummer -- employs the third round of the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES III) linked to the National Death Index (NDI) and life tables with covariates to examine sex differences in mortality. We build on previous literature by expanding the theoretical perspective; analyzing a current nationally representative data set; examining the effects of multiple risk factors; and presenting life tables with covariates. Whereas both sexes have witnessed mortality improvements over time, males have realized relatively greater gains. We find that both sexes realize a marriage survival advantage. Compared to men, women's lower propensity to be married, employed, earn high incomes, and engage in regular physical activity reduces the sex gap in mortality, but women's greater propensity to attend religious services and abstain from smoking widens the sex gap in mortality. These results contribute to the national discussion of health disparities; are rich with implications for family, health care, and pensions; and provide insight into life expectancy forecasts.
Richard Rogers gave a presentation, "Obesity and Mortality", on May 1, 2007 at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) in the Hague. The presentation presented historical patterns in adult obesity, revealed how obesity has changed over time for select subpopulations, and highlighted recent trends in the effects of obesity on mortality.
Richard Rogers taught a short course in April, 2007, "The Demography of Adult Morbidity and Mortality", through the Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute (S3RI) at the University of Southampton in England. The course was attended by graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, staff members from government agencies, and individuals from private organizations.
This three-day course tackled such crucial questions as: Are health disparities widening over time and place? Are individuals really living longer and in better health? How does socioeconomic status operate to improve health and reduce mortality? Will life expectancies in more developed countries continue to increase over time, and if so, by how much? Overall, the course focused on ways to improve health and lengthen life.
Richard Jessor was an invited participant in the year-long Psychology Speaker Series organized by the psychologists at RAND in Santa Monica, CA. His talk, on January 18, dealt with the findings from the Denver-Beijing-Zhengzhou collaborative study of risk and protective factors in adolescent risk behavior and development. Jessor's presentation emphasized that the underlying explanatory account of risk behavior was largely invariant across such radically different societal contexts.
Dick Jessor and Jane Menken were in Italy and Turkey in late April and early May, 2006. Jessor was an invited speaker at the University of Bologna where he talked to a class in Health Psychology and then gave a public lecture on April 27 in the series "I giovedi di Psicologia" ( Psychology Thursdays") at the new branch of the university in Cesena. On May 4, Jessor served as discussant for an international symposium on "Personal and Social Correlates of Risk Behavior in Adolescence" at the Biennial Meeting of the European Association for Research on Adolescence (EARA), which was held in Antalya, Turkey. On May 5, he presented a keynote address at the meeting. And, on May 9th and 10th, Jessor lectured to an undergraduate class and a graduate class in Developmental Psychology at the University of Torino.
A feature article, "Summit of a career", highlighting Richard Jessor and his career at the University of Colorado and the Institute of Behavioral Science was published in the Rocky Mountain News October 24, 2005.
Richard Jessor has been named distinguished professor. This is the highest honor that CU awards to faculty members. He is one of only 43 faculty members to receive the designation in the history of CU. Congratulations to him for this great and richly deserved honor! His nomination will be approved at the December Board of Regents meeting.
Donated from the files of Richard Jessor, the very first IBS newsletter (December, 1959) was called THE INSTI - TOOTER.
It is wonderful news that the ASA (American Sociological Association) Publications Committee approved adding Jason Boardman to the Editorial Board of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. He will be officially on the Board as of January 1, 2006.
July 19, 2005 will see Del Elliott presenting at The National Institute of Justice's Annual Conference on Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation in Washington, DC. Del will be the Luncheon and Keynote Presenter and the title of his presentation at this conference, which is expected to draw around 800 justice researchers and practitioners, is entitled: Crime Prevention - Promise and Practice.
