Center for Families

Harnessing the power of faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends to improve our quality of life.

December 20, 2022

Social Relationships and Cognitive Impairment In Later Life

With population aging and the growing population at-risk of cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, and related dementias, there is a need for a better understanding of how social factors may affect cognitive impairment.

December 20, 2022

Dual Functionality in Later Life

Longevity and quality of life are core interests in gerontology, but debate has ensued as scholars have sought to integrate the two.

December 16, 2022

MFRI Research award finalists contribute diverse solutions and innovations for military families’ mental, physical healthcare

The Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University (MFRI) has announced five finalists for its 2022 Barbara Thompson Excellence in Research on Military and Veteran Families Award. The finalists come from a variety of academic fields and a wide range...

December 13, 2022

Work-Life Flexibility Policies From a Boundary Control and Implementation Perspective: A Review and Research Framework

Although management research on work-life flexibility policies has occurred for over 40 years, it is underdeveloped with inconsistent results. We argue that this is due to theorizing that—but not measuring whether—policy use increases boundary control; a fragmented literature examining a...

December 8, 2022

Within- and between-person associations among internalizing and externalizing problems during middle childhood

Internalizing and externalizing problems are likely to co-occur in childhood and are related to concurrent and prospective mental health outcomes. We examined the longitudinal relations among internalizing and externalizing problems during middle childhood

December 1, 2022

Developmental pathways linking obesity risk and early puberty: The thrifty phenotype and fetal overnutrition hypotheses

We outline an operationalization and extension of the thrifty phenotype and fetal overnutrition hypotheses, two developmental hypotheses stemming from the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) perspective, for developmental pathways from preconception and prenatal risk through child growth to...

December 1, 2022

A data-driven validation of mobile-based care (mCARE) project for children with ASD in LMICs

In this study, we have validated the aims of the NIH project mCARE (mobile-based care for monitoring the milestone and behavioral parameters for children with ASD) by data-driven techniques. This project was developed and deployed for remote monitoring of the...

December 1, 2022

Drivers of Lexical Processing and Implications for Early Learning

Understanding words in unfolding speech requires the coordination of many skills to support successful and rapid comprehension of word meanings. This multifaceted ability emerges before our first birthday, matures over a protracted period of development, varies widely between individuals, forecasts...

November 14, 2022

Disciplinary Roots of 300 Top-Ranked Scientific Contributors to Gerontology: From Legacy to Enriching Our Discovery

Gerontology is viewed by many as a multidisciplinary field of inquiry, but which disciplines have had the greatest impact on research in the field? Combining data from a composite score incorporating multiple citation indicators with information on the highest degree,...

November 6, 2022

Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methodologies: Relational (in) Justice in Context

Limited focus on binary notions of gender and nuclear family forms has restricted our understanding of how family members often revise and reconstruct relationships to challenge traditional reward and dependency structure in relationships.