Social Disparities,
Development, and Health

The goals of this research program are to understand the developmental processes and mechanisms through which disparities in social circumstances, both demographic and socioeconomic, result in disparities in health and developmental outcomes.

Distinguishing features of this research program are:

• A multidimensional focus on developmental processes, including those arising at the level of social context (parent, family, peer, school), biology (physiological, neural), and behavior (including cognition, emotion, attention);
• A multidimensional focus on outcomes of developmental health, including physical and mental health, educational achievement and cognitive development, and social, emotional and behavioral patterns;
• A focus on both population studies and individual level processes, aiming toward an integrative understanding of the aspects of development that are most involved in the effects of social disparities; and 
• Consideration of the implication for practice and policy arising from our emerging understanding of core developmental mechanisms affecting social disparities