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Methods: Data on pregnancies in National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 were used. Current study sample consists of Hispanic women (15-24 years) reporting pregnancy between 1979 and 2014 (n = 616). Data on birthplaces of the respondent and their parents were used to determine generation status. Maternal smoking behaviors before and during pregnancy were self-reported. Data were analyzed using weighted covariate-adjusted logistic regression models.

Results: There were 24% first-generation, 20% second-generation, and 56% third or higher generation Hispanic women in the sample. Majority of participants were married (72%), with a high school degree or more (69%), and of Mexican origin (56%). After controlling for covariates, first generation Hispanic women had lower likelihood of smoking prior to (OR=0.40, p =0.009) and during pregnancy (OR=0.35, p =0.007) compared to third or higher generation women. The second-generation women had lower likelihood of smoking during pregnancy (OR=0.46, p =0.038) compared to third or higher generation women.

Six waves of data are derived from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. Analyses employ a subsample ( n = 4753) of adolescents who were between the ages of 12-14 and engaged in delinquent activities at the first round of data collection. Logistic regression results indicate that the odds of engaging in delinquency increased if the individual is older, male, involved in a gang, disengaged from school, and exposed to more violence. A series of growth models focusing on the subset of adolescents who engaged in some level of delinquency suggest that individual, neighborhood, and family processes predict adolescent trajectories of delinquency. Specifically, females begin at higher initial levels of delinquency and have a slower rate of change, while minority status indicates starting at a lower initial level and a slower rate of change in delinquent activities. Measures of negative community influences suggest higher initial levels but slower growth in delinquency. Positive family processes indicate lower initial levels of delinquency. Overall, these predictors of delinquent trajectories are similar for males and females. Experiencing violence at an early age was the only characteristic that significantly differed between males and females, predicting increases in delinquency over time for males. Results suggest numerous avenues for research, intervention, and policy. Broader implications for policy, such as providing adolescents with opportunities to serve in crime prevention efforts in their communities, are also discussed.

Methods: Young adults born between 1980 and 1990 who participated in the Young Adult file of the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth were examined (N=3901). The accumulation of childhood poverty is captured via poverty exposure from each survey year from the prenatal year through age 18 years. Body mass index was calculated and categorised into the reference criteria for adults outlined by the Center for Disease Control. Logistic regression models were stratified by race/ethnicity and included a term interacting poverty and gender, along with a number of covariates, including various longitudinal socioeconomic status measures and indicators for the intergenerational transmission of economic disadvantage and body weight.

Results: Reoccurring exposure to childhood poverty was positively related to OV/OB for white, black and Hispanic young adult women and inversely related for white young adult men. A direct relationship between the accumulation of childhood poverty and OV/OB was not found for black and Hispanic young adult men.

Conclusions: Helping families move out of poverty may improve the long-term health status of white, black and Hispanic female children as young adults. Community area interventions designed to change impoverished community environments and assist low-income families reduce family level correlates of poverty may help to reduce the weight disparities observed in young adulthood.

Methods: Analyses was based on adolescents born between 1975 and 1991 to women from the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth data set (N=4762). Three types of family-level stressors were captured from birth to age 15: family disruption and conflict, financial strain, and maternal risky health behaviors, along with a total cumulative risk index. Body mass index was constructed on reference criteria for children outlined by the Centers for Disease Control. Multivariate logistic regressions were conducted for the three types of family stressors and for the total cumulative index.

Results: The accumulation of family disruption and conflict and financial stress was positively related to female adolescents being overweight/obese. Childhood exposure to maternal risky health behaviors was positively associated with higher weight status for male adolescents. Total cumulative stress was related to overweight/obesity for females, but not males.

Conclusion: Different family-level stress indices are associated with the weight status of female and male adolescents. Combining types of family-level stress into one cumulative index appears to mask these differences.

Methods: Data from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 was used to estimate the odds of being overweight in young adulthood based on family instability experienced during childhood (n = 5139). Family instability was measured by young adults’ exposure to family structure transitions from birth to the age of 18 as defined by mother’s formation and dissolution of romantic unions. Body mass index was directly assessed in young adulthood.

Results: A series of logistic regression models predicted the odds of young adults being overweight or obese. Results indicate that cumulative family structure transitions during childhood increase the odds for young adult females born to married mothers to be overweight by 19%. Family instability, however, does not increase the probability for young adult females nor males born to single mothers to be overweight.

Conclusions: Experiencing family instability has a negative accumulating impact on the weight status of young adult females born to married mothers. Interventions during childhood are important to prevent females who experience multiple family transitions from becoming overweight as young adults.