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Author: Decker, Ryan M.
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Decker, Ryan M.
Maternal Influences on Child Health Behaviors
Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2012
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT)
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Child Health; Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Cigarette Use (see Smoking); Family Influences; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Maternal Employment; Variables, Instrumental

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This dissertation investigates the influence of maternal health behaviors on her child’s health behaviors later in life. Utilizing longitudinal data that follows both mother and child throughout their lives allows for maternal and child health behaviors to be studied noncontemporaneously. This is the first study to explore the causal relationship between both maternal smoking in her child’s childhood and future child smoking, as well as maternal alcohol use (abuse) and future child alcohol use (abuse).

The first chapter provides an introduction to the health behaviors and other maternal influences discussed in this dissertation. It is important to model the subject’s childhood accurately to account for childhood factors that could affect future decision making. After controlling for the subject’s childhood environment, the researcher can see the direct impact of maternal health behaviors on her child’s future health decisions. The health behaviors at interest in this study are cigarette smoking, alcohol use, and binge drinking. There is an intuitive link between parental, here only maternal, behaviors and child behaviors. The real question is if the child, the subject, sees this influence as a positive or a negative in future decision-making. The unique design of this study measures maternal health behaviors during the subject’s childhood, aged birth through 15, and subject health behaviors later in life, aged 16 and older.

Bibliography Citation
Decker, Ryan M. Maternal Influences on Child Health Behaviors. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2012.