Research and News from the Center for Families at Purdue University

September 2, 2023

A ‘million word gap’ for children who aren’t read to at home

David Purpura

With students returning to school, one topic is especially timely to discuss: the incredible value of children reading at home. Young children whose parents read them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 million more words than...

September 1, 2023

Family-based and external discrimination experienced by multiracial individuals: Links to internalizing symptoms and familial support

Annabelle Atkin

Multiracial individuals are exposed to many forms of interpersonal racial discrimination, including general discrimination against their monoracial groups and discrimination against being multiracial. Because their families include members of different racial groups, multiracial people may also be exposed to various...

August 30, 2023

The roles of familial transmission and smoking during pregnancy on executive function skills: A sibling-comparison study

Kristine Marceau

This research examines maternal smoking during pregnancy and risk for poorer executive function in siblings discordant for exposure.

August 29, 2023

The relationship between mother and father racial-ethnic socialization profiles and family cohesion and sociopolitical values among Asian American adolescents

Annabelle Atkin

Although research on racial-ethnic socialization with Asian American families examines academic and psychological outcomes, less is known about whether messages from mothers and fathers are related to their adolescent's Asian American sociopolitical values and family cohesion.

August 26, 2023

The Mental Health Consequences of Sexual Identity Discrepancies

Trent Mize

Sexualities scholars have long been interested in situations in which a person’s sexual identity and behavior are mismatched—e.g., when a gay or lesbian-identified person remains “closeted” and only dates different-gender partners. We argue that this mismatch represents a useful proxy...

August 24, 2023

Nursing, Education faculty collaborate on U.S. Health and Human Services grant to improve graduate nursing education

Karen J. Foli (PI), and Wanju Huang (Co-PI), will collaborate on the project “Advanced Practice NuRses’ Opioid Use Disorder Education Through a Massive, Open, Online Course (APROUD-MOOC).”

August 23, 2023

Couples and concealable chronic illness: Investigating couples’ communication, coping, and relational well-being over time

Rosie Shrout

Couples managing chronic illnesses—the leading causes of death and disability in the United States—can experience challenges in their daily lives and relationships. Both couple members have reported lower satisfaction, greater burden, and communication difficulties. Many of these illnesses are nonvisible...

August 15, 2023

Maternal smoking cessation study reveals ‘inheritable’ impacts on child development

In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in the United States “5.5% of all births were to women who reported smoking cigarettes at any time during pregnancy.” That translates to almost 200,000 children who were at...

August 13, 2023

Can we please stop calling it ‘mom brain’?

It’s beyond time to rebrand the concept of “mom brain”. The reductive term has too many negative connotations and isn’t even accurate. Instead, it’s important to focus on the positive changes in our brains after we become mothers, a recent...

August 8, 2023

Congratulations 2023 Kanter Award Winners!

Anette Fasang and Silke Aisenbrey are the winning authors for their article Uncovering social stratification: Intersectional inequalities in work and family life courses by gender and race.