L Gaydosh
Biographic Data
| ID | 39165 |
|---|---|
| NAME | L Gaydosh |
| GIVEN NAMES | L |
| FAMILY NAME | Gaydosh |
| SIGNATURE | GAYDOSH L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Vanderbilt University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0036-626X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 169 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Residential exposure to deadly gun violence and accelerated biological aging in a national sample of U.S. adolescents
Background: Gun violence is a traumatic and pervasive neighborhood stressor with far-reaching consequences for population health. However, less is known about how gun violence exposure becomes biologically embedded during adolescence, a sensitive period for shaping aging trajectories. We examined whether residential exposure to deadly gun violence is associated with accelerated biological aging in a diverse sample of U.S. adolescents. Methods: Th…
The Role of Despair in Predicting Self-Destructive Behaviors
Working age (25-64) mortality in the US has been increasing for decades, driven in part by rising deaths due to drug overdose, as well as increases in suicide and alcohol-related mortality. These deaths have been hypothesized by some to be due to despair, but this has rarely been empirically tested. For despair to explain mortality due to alcohol-related liver disease, suicide, and drug overdose, it must first predict the behaviors that lead to s…
Research Note
The trend of increasing U.S. working-age (25–64) mortality is well-documented. Yet, our understanding of its causes is incomplete, and analyses are often limited to using population data with little information on individual behaviors and characteristics. One characterization of this trend centers on the role of despair as a catalyst for self-destructive behaviors that ultimately manifest in mortality from suicide and substance use. The role of d…
Material hardship and telomere length in children
Telomere length (TL) serves as a biomarker of exposure to stressors, including material hardship. Data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (1998–2015) were utilized to determine whether prior material hardship was associated with shorter salivary TL at years 9 and 15. 49% of the year 9 study population were female, 49% were Black, and 25% were Hispanic. At year 9 (N = 1990), regression analyses found a significant association be…
Taking John Schulenberg's “long view” on successful transitions to adulthood
Can positive transitions into young adulthood at age 25 prevent problematic substance use at age 31, even in the context of childhood adverse family environments, conduct problems, and adolescent substance use? We lean on John Schulenberg's developmental framework to examine this question, focusing on the potential young adult milestones of high school and college graduation, employment, residential independence, romantic partnership, and parenth…
Institutional Context Shapes the Physical Health of College Graduates Differently for U.S. White, Black, and Hispanic Adults
Greater educational attainment is generally associated with healthier and longer lives. However, important heterogeneity in who benefits from educational attainment, how much, and why remains underexplored. In particular, in the United States, the physical health returns to educational attainment are not as large for minoritized racial and ethnic groups compared with individuals racialized as White. Yet, our current understanding of ethnoracial d…
Structural racism in primary schools and changes in epigenetic age acceleration among Black and White youth
Failing Population Health
Defining despair
Contextualizing Educational Disparities in Health
Educational disparities in health are well documented, yet the education–health relationship is inconsistent across racial/ethnic and nativity groups. These inconsistencies may arise from characteristics of the early life environments in which individuals attain their education. We evaluate this possibility by investigating (1) whether educational disparities in cardiometabolic risk vary by race/ethnicity and nativity among Black, Hispanic, and W…
Is educational attainment associated with young adult cardiometabolic health
Educational disparities in health and mortality are well-documented and evidence suggests that they may be widening. Yet, there is much unknown about when educational disparities begin to emerge and for whom. This paper investigates the association between educational attainment and cardiometabolic health in young adults with critical attention paid to differences across racial/ethnic and sex subgroups. We focus on cardiometabolic health in young…
Youth academic achievement, social context, and body mass index
This study assesses the relationship between academic achievement and body mass index for age (BMI) trajectories across childhood and adolescence, and investigates how this relationship is moderated by social context. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that academic achievement is not associated with improved BMI among youth from disadvantaged social contexts. We test for differences by race/ethnicity, and examine the role of county-level econo…
Demographic and developmental patterns in telomere length across adolescence
1,654) in telomere length. We find a quantitatively small but significant average lengthening in telomere length across adolescence and little evidence of associations between telomere length and pubertal development
Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms Across Early- and Mid-Life Among the Add Health Cohort
Does it Take a Village? Kin Coresidence and Child Survival in Tanzania
Children in Tanzania live in a variety of family structures, many of which contain related and unrelated non-parental adults. In this article, I use data from the Rufiji Health and Demographic Surveillance System in Tanzania to examine the role of coresident non-parental adults in childrearing. First, I use quantitative demographic data to investigate the association between kin coresidence and child survival, differentiating by lineage. I also e…
The Depths of Despair Among US Adults Entering Midlife
Objectives. To test whether indicators of despair are rising among US adults as they age toward midlife and whether this rise is concentrated among low-educated Whites and in rural areas. Methods. We used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, a nationally representative study of US adolescents in 1994. Our sample was restricted to individuals who participated in 1 or more of 5 waves (1994–2017) and self-identifi…
Does Despair Really Kill? A Roadmap for an Evidence-Based Answer
Two seemingly associated demographic trends have generated considerable interest: income stagnation and rising premature mortality from suicides, drug poisoning, and alcoholic liver disease among US non-Hispanic Whites with low education. Economists interpret these population-level trends to indicate that despair induced by financial stressors is a shared pathway to these causes of death. Although we now have the catchy term “deaths of despair,” …
College completion predicts lower depression but higher metabolic syndrome among disadvantaged minorities in young adulthood
Significance College graduates enjoy healthier, longer lives compared with individuals who do not graduate from college. However, the health benefit of educational attainment is not as great for blacks as it is for whites. Moreover, college completion may not erase the detrimental effects of early-life disadvantage for blacks and Hispanics. We use nationally representative data on young adults to test whether American minorities experience differ…
Father Absence and Accelerated Reproductive Development in Non-Hispanic White Women in the United States
Girls who experience father absence in childhood also experience accelerated reproductive development in comparison with peers with present fathers. One hypothesis advanced to explain this empirical pattern is genetic confounding, wherein gene-environment correlation (rGE) causes a spurious relationship between father absence and reproductive timing. We test this hypothesis by constructing polygenic scores for age at menarche and first birth usin…
Childhood Family Instability and Young Adult Health
American children live in a variety of family structures throughout their childhoods. Such instability in family arrangements is common and has important demonstrated implications for short-term child outcomes. However, it is not known whether family instability experienced in childhood has enduring health consequences across the life course. Using demographic, social, and biological data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adul…
Beyond Orphanhood
This article used data from the Rufiji Health and Demographic Surveillance System in Tanzania to examine the influence of parental nonresidence on child survival and school entry. Using survival analysis methods, the article tested variations by parent and by cause, examining parental death, nonresidence because of parental relationship status, and migration. In general, maternal nonresidence was more consequential for child survival, whereas pat…
Childhood Risk of Parental Absence in Tanzania
Although parents might not live with their children for a variety of reasons, existing accounts of parental absence often examine one cause in isolation. Using detailed longitudinal demographic surveillance data from Rufiji, Tanzania, this article examines parental absence due to death, migration, child relocation, union dissolution, and union formation from 2001–2011. Employing survival analysis, the article quantifies children’s risk of absence…
Partnership Concurrency and Coital Frequency
An offer you can't refuse? Provider-initiated HIV testing in antenatal clinics in rural Malawi
International organizations promote provider-initiated, 'routine' HIV testing of pregnant women seeking antenatal care as an effort to curb mother-to-child transmission. We offer an account of the perceptions of HIV testing at antenatal clinics in rural Malawi. Although it is both international and Government of Malawi policy that women must be explicitly informed of their right to refuse testing, analysis of in-depth interviews, focus group disc…
Increasing the acceptability of HIV counseling and testing with three C's
Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms Across Early- and Mid-Life Among the Add Health Cohort
The Depths of Despair Among US Adults Entering Midlife
Objectives. To test whether indicators of despair are rising among US adults as they age toward midlife and whether this rise is concentrated among low-educated Whites and in rural areas. Methods. We used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, a nationally representative study of US adolescents in 1994. Our sample was restricted to individuals who participated in 1 or more of 5 waves (1994–2017) and self-identifi…
Does Despair Really Kill? A Roadmap for an Evidence-Based Answer
Two seemingly associated demographic trends have generated considerable interest: income stagnation and rising premature mortality from suicides, drug poisoning, and alcoholic liver disease among US non-Hispanic Whites with low education. Economists interpret these population-level trends to indicate that despair induced by financial stressors is a shared pathway to these causes of death. Although we now have the catchy term “deaths of despair,” …
Childhood Risk of Parental Absence in Tanzania
Although parents might not live with their children for a variety of reasons, existing accounts of parental absence often examine one cause in isolation. Using detailed longitudinal demographic surveillance data from Rufiji, Tanzania, this article examines parental absence due to death, migration, child relocation, union dissolution, and union formation from 2001–2011. Employing survival analysis, the article quantifies children’s risk of absence…
Increasing the acceptability of HIV counseling and testing with three C's
Childhood Family Instability and Young Adult Health
American children live in a variety of family structures throughout their childhoods. Such instability in family arrangements is common and has important demonstrated implications for short-term child outcomes. However, it is not known whether family instability experienced in childhood has enduring health consequences across the life course. Using demographic, social, and biological data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adul…
Defining despair
Beyond Orphanhood
This article used data from the Rufiji Health and Demographic Surveillance System in Tanzania to examine the influence of parental nonresidence on child survival and school entry. Using survival analysis methods, the article tested variations by parent and by cause, examining parental death, nonresidence because of parental relationship status, and migration. In general, maternal nonresidence was more consequential for child survival, whereas pat…
An offer you can't refuse? Provider-initiated HIV testing in antenatal clinics in rural Malawi
International organizations promote provider-initiated, 'routine' HIV testing of pregnant women seeking antenatal care as an effort to curb mother-to-child transmission. We offer an account of the perceptions of HIV testing at antenatal clinics in rural Malawi. Although it is both international and Government of Malawi policy that women must be explicitly informed of their right to refuse testing, analysis of in-depth interviews, focus group disc…
Contextualizing Educational Disparities in Health
Educational disparities in health are well documented, yet the education–health relationship is inconsistent across racial/ethnic and nativity groups. These inconsistencies may arise from characteristics of the early life environments in which individuals attain their education. We evaluate this possibility by investigating (1) whether educational disparities in cardiometabolic risk vary by race/ethnicity and nativity among Black, Hispanic, and W…
Father Absence and Accelerated Reproductive Development in Non-Hispanic White Women in the United States
Girls who experience father absence in childhood also experience accelerated reproductive development in comparison with peers with present fathers. One hypothesis advanced to explain this empirical pattern is genetic confounding, wherein gene-environment correlation (rGE) causes a spurious relationship between father absence and reproductive timing. We test this hypothesis by constructing polygenic scores for age at menarche and first birth usin…
Structural racism in primary schools and changes in epigenetic age acceleration among Black and White youth
Research Note
The trend of increasing U.S. working-age (25–64) mortality is well-documented. Yet, our understanding of its causes is incomplete, and analyses are often limited to using population data with little information on individual behaviors and characteristics. One characterization of this trend centers on the role of despair as a catalyst for self-destructive behaviors that ultimately manifest in mortality from suicide and substance use. The role of d…
Taking John Schulenberg's “long view” on successful transitions to adulthood
Can positive transitions into young adulthood at age 25 prevent problematic substance use at age 31, even in the context of childhood adverse family environments, conduct problems, and adolescent substance use? We lean on John Schulenberg's developmental framework to examine this question, focusing on the potential young adult milestones of high school and college graduation, employment, residential independence, romantic partnership, and parenth…
Increasing the acceptability of HIV counseling and testing with three C's
An offer you can't refuse? Provider-initiated HIV testing in antenatal clinics in rural Malawi
International organizations promote provider-initiated, 'routine' HIV testing of pregnant women seeking antenatal care as an effort to curb mother-to-child transmission. We offer an account of the perceptions of HIV testing at antenatal clinics in rural Malawi. Although it is both international and Government of Malawi policy that women must be explicitly informed of their right to refuse testing, analysis of in-depth interviews, focus group disc…
Partnership Concurrency and Coital Frequency
Childhood Risk of Parental Absence in Tanzania
Although parents might not live with their children for a variety of reasons, existing accounts of parental absence often examine one cause in isolation. Using detailed longitudinal demographic surveillance data from Rufiji, Tanzania, this article examines parental absence due to death, migration, child relocation, union dissolution, and union formation from 2001–2011. Employing survival analysis, the article quantifies children’s risk of absence…
Beyond Orphanhood
This article used data from the Rufiji Health and Demographic Surveillance System in Tanzania to examine the influence of parental nonresidence on child survival and school entry. Using survival analysis methods, the article tested variations by parent and by cause, examining parental death, nonresidence because of parental relationship status, and migration. In general, maternal nonresidence was more consequential for child survival, whereas pat…
College completion predicts lower depression but higher metabolic syndrome among disadvantaged minorities in young adulthood
Significance College graduates enjoy healthier, longer lives compared with individuals who do not graduate from college. However, the health benefit of educational attainment is not as great for blacks as it is for whites. Moreover, college completion may not erase the detrimental effects of early-life disadvantage for blacks and Hispanics. We use nationally representative data on young adults to test whether American minorities experience differ…
Father Absence and Accelerated Reproductive Development in Non-Hispanic White Women in the United States
Girls who experience father absence in childhood also experience accelerated reproductive development in comparison with peers with present fathers. One hypothesis advanced to explain this empirical pattern is genetic confounding, wherein gene-environment correlation (rGE) causes a spurious relationship between father absence and reproductive timing. We test this hypothesis by constructing polygenic scores for age at menarche and first birth usin…
Childhood Family Instability and Young Adult Health
American children live in a variety of family structures throughout their childhoods. Such instability in family arrangements is common and has important demonstrated implications for short-term child outcomes. However, it is not known whether family instability experienced in childhood has enduring health consequences across the life course. Using demographic, social, and biological data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adul…
Does it Take a Village? Kin Coresidence and Child Survival in Tanzania
Children in Tanzania live in a variety of family structures, many of which contain related and unrelated non-parental adults. In this article, I use data from the Rufiji Health and Demographic Surveillance System in Tanzania to examine the role of coresident non-parental adults in childrearing. First, I use quantitative demographic data to investigate the association between kin coresidence and child survival, differentiating by lineage. I also e…
The Depths of Despair Among US Adults Entering Midlife
Objectives. To test whether indicators of despair are rising among US adults as they age toward midlife and whether this rise is concentrated among low-educated Whites and in rural areas. Methods. We used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, a nationally representative study of US adolescents in 1994. Our sample was restricted to individuals who participated in 1 or more of 5 waves (1994–2017) and self-identifi…
Does Despair Really Kill? A Roadmap for an Evidence-Based Answer
Two seemingly associated demographic trends have generated considerable interest: income stagnation and rising premature mortality from suicides, drug poisoning, and alcoholic liver disease among US non-Hispanic Whites with low education. Economists interpret these population-level trends to indicate that despair induced by financial stressors is a shared pathway to these causes of death. Although we now have the catchy term “deaths of despair,” …
Youth academic achievement, social context, and body mass index
This study assesses the relationship between academic achievement and body mass index for age (BMI) trajectories across childhood and adolescence, and investigates how this relationship is moderated by social context. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that academic achievement is not associated with improved BMI among youth from disadvantaged social contexts. We test for differences by race/ethnicity, and examine the role of county-level econo…
Demographic and developmental patterns in telomere length across adolescence
1,654) in telomere length. We find a quantitatively small but significant average lengthening in telomere length across adolescence and little evidence of associations between telomere length and pubertal development
Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms Across Early- and Mid-Life Among the Add Health Cohort
Is educational attainment associated with young adult cardiometabolic health
Educational disparities in health and mortality are well-documented and evidence suggests that they may be widening. Yet, there is much unknown about when educational disparities begin to emerge and for whom. This paper investigates the association between educational attainment and cardiometabolic health in young adults with critical attention paid to differences across racial/ethnic and sex subgroups. We focus on cardiometabolic health in young…
Contextualizing Educational Disparities in Health
Educational disparities in health are well documented, yet the education–health relationship is inconsistent across racial/ethnic and nativity groups. These inconsistencies may arise from characteristics of the early life environments in which individuals attain their education. We evaluate this possibility by investigating (1) whether educational disparities in cardiometabolic risk vary by race/ethnicity and nativity among Black, Hispanic, and W…
Failing Population Health
Defining despair
Material hardship and telomere length in children
Telomere length (TL) serves as a biomarker of exposure to stressors, including material hardship. Data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (1998–2015) were utilized to determine whether prior material hardship was associated with shorter salivary TL at years 9 and 15. 49% of the year 9 study population were female, 49% were Black, and 25% were Hispanic. At year 9 (N = 1990), regression analyses found a significant association be…
Taking John Schulenberg's “long view” on successful transitions to adulthood
Can positive transitions into young adulthood at age 25 prevent problematic substance use at age 31, even in the context of childhood adverse family environments, conduct problems, and adolescent substance use? We lean on John Schulenberg's developmental framework to examine this question, focusing on the potential young adult milestones of high school and college graduation, employment, residential independence, romantic partnership, and parenth…
Institutional Context Shapes the Physical Health of College Graduates Differently for U.S. White, Black, and Hispanic Adults
Greater educational attainment is generally associated with healthier and longer lives. However, important heterogeneity in who benefits from educational attainment, how much, and why remains underexplored. In particular, in the United States, the physical health returns to educational attainment are not as large for minoritized racial and ethnic groups compared with individuals racialized as White. Yet, our current understanding of ethnoracial d…
Structural racism in primary schools and changes in epigenetic age acceleration among Black and White youth
The Role of Despair in Predicting Self-Destructive Behaviors
Working age (25-64) mortality in the US has been increasing for decades, driven in part by rising deaths due to drug overdose, as well as increases in suicide and alcohol-related mortality. These deaths have been hypothesized by some to be due to despair, but this has rarely been empirically tested. For despair to explain mortality due to alcohol-related liver disease, suicide, and drug overdose, it must first predict the behaviors that lead to s…
Research Note
The trend of increasing U.S. working-age (25–64) mortality is well-documented. Yet, our understanding of its causes is incomplete, and analyses are often limited to using population data with little information on individual behaviors and characteristics. One characterization of this trend centers on the role of despair as a catalyst for self-destructive behaviors that ultimately manifest in mortality from suicide and substance use. The role of d…
Residential exposure to deadly gun violence and accelerated biological aging in a national sample of U.S. adolescents
Background: Gun violence is a traumatic and pervasive neighborhood stressor with far-reaching consequences for population health. However, less is known about how gun violence exposure becomes biologically embedded during adolescence, a sensitive period for shaping aging trajectories. We examined whether residential exposure to deadly gun violence is associated with accelerated biological aging in a diverse sample of U.S. adolescents. Methods: Th…
Psychology (21 works) · Medicine (19 works) · Demography (16 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Developmental psychology (11 works) · Health disparities and outcomes (11 works) · Demography (10 works) · Gerontology (9 works) · Population (8 works) · Young adult (7 works)