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Association of Child Poverty, Brain Development, and Academic Achievement.

ABSTRACT: IMPORTANCE:Children living in poverty generally perform poorly in school, with markedly lower standardized test scores and lower educational attainment. The longer children live in poverty, the greater their academic deficits. These patterns persist to adulthood, contributing to lifetime-reduced occupational attainment. OBJECTIVE:To determine whether atypical patterns of structural brain development mediate the relationship between household poverty and impaired academic performance. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS:Longitudinal cohort study analyzing 823 magnetic resonance imaging scans of 389 typically developing children and adolescents aged 4 to 22 years from the National Institutes of Health Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of Normal Brain Development with complete sociodemographic and neuroimaging data. Data collection began in November 2001 and ended in August 2007. Participants were screened for a variety of factors suspected to adversely affect brain development, recruited at 6 data collection sites across the United States, assessed at baseline, and followed up at 24-month intervals for a total of 3 periods. Each study center used community-based sampling to reflect regional and overall US demographics of income, race, and ethnicity based on the US Department of Housing and Urban Development definitions of area income. One-quarter of sample households reported the total family income below 200% of the federal poverty level. Repeated observations were available for 301 participants. EXPOSURE:Household poverty measured by family income and adjusted for family size as a percentage of the federal poverty level. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES:Children's scores on cognitive and academic achievement assessments and brain tissue, including gray matter of the total brain, frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and hippocampus. RESULTS:Poverty is tied to structural differences in several areas of the brain associated with school readiness skills, with the largest influence observed among children from the poorest households. Regional gray matter volumes of children below 1.5 times the federal poverty level were 3 to 4 percentage points below the developmental norm (P?

SUBMITTER: Hair NL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4687959 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Association of Child Poverty, Brain Development, and Academic Achievement.

Hair Nicole L NL Hanson Jamie L JL Wolfe Barbara L BL Pollak Seth D SD

JAMA pediatrics 20150901 9

<h4>Importance</h4>Children living in poverty generally perform poorly in school, with markedly lower standardized test scores and lower educational attainment. The longer children live in poverty, the greater their academic deficits. These patterns persist to adulthood, contributing to lifetime-reduced occupational attainment.<h4>Objective</h4>To determine whether atypical patterns of structural brain development mediate the relationship between household poverty and impaired academic performan ...[more]

PMID: 26192216

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Project description:ObjectiveTo describe the distribution of pediatricians and family physicians (child physicians) across school districts and examine the association between physician supply and third-grade test scores.Data sources and study settingData come from the January 2020 American Medical Association Physician Masterfile, the 2009-2013 and 2014-2018 waves of American Community Survey 5-Year Data, and the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA), which uses test scores from all U.S. public schools. We use covariate data provided by SEDA to describe student populations.Study designThis descriptive analysis constructs a physician-to-child-population ratio for every school district in the country and describes the child population served by the current distribution of physicians. We fit a set of multivariable regression models to estimate the associations between district test score outcomes and district physician supply. Our model includes state fixed effects to control for unobservable state-level factors, as well as a covariate vector of sociodemographic characteristics.Data collectionPublic data from three sources were matched by district ID.Principal findingsPhysicians are highly unequally distributed across districts: nearly 3640 (29.6%) of 12,297 districts have no child physician, which includes 49% of rural districts. Rural children of color in particular have very little access to pediatric care, and this inequality is more extreme when looking exclusively at pediatricians. Districts that have higher child physician supplies tend to have higher academic test scores in early education, independent of community socioeconomic status and racial/ethnic composition. While the national data show this positive relationship (0.012 SD, 95% CI, 0.0103-0.0127), it is most pronounced for districts in the bottom tertile of physician supply (0.163 SD, 95% CI, 0.108-0.219).ConclusionsOur study demonstrates a highly unequal distribution of child physicians in the U.S., and that children with less access to physicians have lower academic performance in early education.

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Association of Child Poverty, Brain Development, and Academic Achievement.

Publications

Association of Child Poverty, Brain Development, and Academic Achievement.

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