Research and News from the Center for Families at Purdue University

March 20, 2022

Differentiating the impact of family and friend social support for single mothers on parenting and internalizing symptoms

There is growing interest in what helps parents maintain good parenting when they encounter stressors. The United States has the world's highest rate of single-parent households. These families often experience higher adversity and, in turn, mental distress. Supportive relationships are...

March 20, 2022

Multi-type childhood maltreatment exposure and substance use development from adolescence to early adulthood: A GxE study

Childhood maltreatment types can co-occur and are associated with increased substance use during adolescence and early adulthood. There is also a strong genetic basis for substance use which interacts with environmental factors.

February 26, 2022

Evaluating a food pantry-based intervention to improve food security, dietary intake and quality in Midwestern food pantries

Voices for Food was a longitudinal community, food pantry-based intervention informed by the social ecological model, and designed to improve food security, dietary intake and quality among clients, that was carried out in 24 rural food pantries across six Midwestern...

February 25, 2022

Mandatory Reporting “will Paralyze People” or “Without it, People Would not Report”: Understanding Perspectives from Within the Child Protection System

Although mandatory reporting has grown substantially in scope and geographical coverage, there is limited empirical evidence to support its effectiveness in preventing harm to children. In the absence of rigorous evaluations, comparing the perspectives of individuals who work in systems...

February 20, 2022

Why do early mathematics skills predict later mathematics and reading achievement? The role of executive function

A robust association between young children’s early mathematical proficiency and later academic achievement is well established. Less is known about the mechanisms through which early mathematics skills may contribute to later mathematics and especially reading achievement. Using a parallel multiple...

February 20, 2022

Parents’ math anxiety and mathematics performance of pre-kindergarten children

Prior research demonstrates that individuals’ math anxiety may be negatively related to their mathematics performance. However, little research has examined how caregivers’ math anxiety is associated with children’s mathematics performance prior to kindergarten.

February 13, 2022

Moralizing the law: Lactating workers and the transformation of supervising managers

The Lactation at Work Law amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to mandate employer accommodation of employees' breast milk expression. Interviews with employees, human resource specialists, and supervising managers in nine industries found that some organizations' supervising managers, who initially...

February 4, 2022

Analysis of Early-Life Growth and Age at Pubertal Onset in US Children

Earlier pubertal onset may be associated with an increased risk of chronic diseases. However, the extent to which growth in the first 5 years of life—an important developmental life stage that lays the foundation for later health outcomes—is associated with...

February 3, 2022

Management and ownership transfer in small and medium family farms

This study investigated the succession process in small and medium family farms as two distinct but related processes of management transfer and ownership transfer. Past studies focused on the broad subject of succession, without dissecting succession into the components that...

February 1, 2022

Research-Based Design and Use of Picture Books to Promote Children’s Early Mathematical Learning: A Conceptual Model

Picture book reading can provide rich opportunities for learning across early development. In this chapter, the authors provide a conceptual model for understanding the ways in which children and caregivers typically read mathematical picture books and identify the ways in...