Social Research Methods and Research Practices > Inter/Transdisciplinary
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Background:
The relationship between childhood socioeconomic status (SES) and adult health is well established. This article examines the less well-known areas of this research: whether the age of childhood exposure matters, if mediators differ based on age, and if these relationships vary by racialised group.
Methods:
We used multi-group path analysis and data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to analyse direct and indirect relationships between a retrospective measure of childhood SES in early, middle and late childhood, and adult self-rated health for non-Hispanic Black and White individuals.
Results:
Childhood SES affected adult health indirectly through each of the three mediators: education, distress and health behaviours, but only for non-Hispanic Whites. In addition, early and middle childhood SES (0–5 and 6–12 years old, respectively) impacted late childhood SES (13–16 years old), suggesting the importance of cumulative exposure. We found no evidence that childhood SES impacted any of the mediators or adult self-rated health for the non-Hispanic Black sample.
Conclusion:
The findings support the assertion that timing of poverty and possibly increased exposure matter for non-Hispanic Whites, but we found no support for the impact of childhood SES on adult self-rated health for the non-Hispanic Black sample. This study shows the importance of stratifying life course analyses by race and particular periods during childhood, suggesting the need for more targeted interventions based on these factors.
Research has shown that our socially structured experiences elicit a biological response, leading to the observation that numerous biomarkers (objective biological measures that are representative of various biological processes) are socially patterned. This ‘social-to-biological’ research is of interest to researchers across multiple disciplines and topics and especially to those with an interest in understanding the biological embodiment of the ‘social environment’. Combining social and biomarker data is also of relevance to those examining the biological determinants of social behaviours (for example, the relationship between genetics and certain behaviours like smoking). However, as much of the research involving biomarkers and social data are multidisciplinary, researchers need to understand why and how to optimally use and combine such data. This article provides a resource for researchers by introducing a range of commonly available biomarkers across studies and countries. Because of the breadth of possible analyses, we do not aim to provide an exhaustive and detailed review of each. Instead, we have structured the glossary to include: an easy-to-understand definition; a description of how it is measured; key considerations when using; and an example of its use in a relevant social-to-biological study. We have limited this glossary to biomarkers that are available in large health and social surveys or population-based cohort studies and focused on biomarkers in adults. We have structured the glossary around the main physiological systems studied in research on social to biological transition and those that go across systems and highlight some basic terms and key theoretical concepts.
Late middle-aged adults (50–64 years of age) who have physical disabilities often experience a decline in life satisfaction due to those bodily limitations. It is crucial to understand how their life satisfaction can be enhanced to support the social participation, health and wellbeing of this age group. This study examined the association between social participation and life satisfaction over time in Korean adults 50–64 years of age with physical disabilities. Data on 545 adults with physical disabilities aged 50–64 years from the 2016–2021 Korea Panel Survey of Employment for the Disabled (PSED) were extracted. The dependent variable was self-reported life satisfaction while social participation was the time-varying independent variable which was measured with a single question. The latent growth model (LGM) was used to examine the association between social participation and life satisfaction at each time point. The sample was composed of 313 (57.43 per cent) males and 232 (42.57 per cent) females from Korea having an average age of 57.42 years. A piecewise LGM demonstrated good model fit. Social participation was positively associated with life satisfaction at each time point for over the course of six years, with standardised coefficients ranging from 0.154 to 0.275 (p<0.001). Social participation contributed significantly to life satisfaction in Korean adults 50–64 years of age with physical disabilities. The findings indicate the need for social participation that could improve the life satisfaction of those with physical disabilities.
We examine the extent to which experience of out-of-home residential care (OHC) during childhood (ages 0–16) relates to development in the ‘next generation’. Specifically, we ask whether maternal experience of OHC during her own childhood is associated with the behavioural, emotional and cognitive development of her child (age 3), drawing on data collected for the UK Millennium Cohort Study. Comparing the children of OHC experienced mothers with those whose mothers had not spent time in care, we observe stark raw differences between their early development, with children of OHC mothers performing worse across all domains examined – cognitive (language and school readiness), behavioural and emotional adjustment. Using regression analyses, we show that while the disadvantages in cognitive (language) and emotional adjustment among children of OHC experienced mothers are explained by differences in the child’s family demographic characteristics and socio-economic status (SES), the associations between maternal OHC experience and behavioural problems and school readiness remain. Behavioural differences are mediated by aspects of parenting behaviours and the parent–child relationship; school readiness differences are only fully attenuated once maternal health and wellbeing measures are further accounted for. This article highlights the importance of extending support for those with OHC experience into adult life, particularly for those who become parents, and for particular attention to be given to initiatives that nurture parent–child relationships to help break the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage.
There are no easy instructions for responding to a view of the world in which technoscience is always social and society is shaped by technoscience. This view may change the ways in which we think about the role and place of science in society, but given the diversity of the interactions and mutual shaping between science and society, there is no single account of how to navigate these. However, three points to keep in mind are: technoscience is a human project, and embeds human values; it is never inevitable, and can be resisted; and technoscience is contingent, and could be otherwise. Part of our responsibility is to imagine how the world could be otherwise, and how technoscience might serve this.
Expertise can best be understood as something that is relational and shifting: what matters is whether you can give a convincing performance of being an expert. Whether one ‘is’ an expert therefore relies in part on the validation of others who credit you as such. Expertise in turn plays a role in shaping society. Expert advice populates the legal system, policy, medicine, and more. Reports of the death of expertise are therefore exaggerated.
Technoscience and society are intertwined in many ways. Science and technology respond to human needs and directives – during the COVID-19 pandemic in the early 2020s, for example, research and researchers rapidly oriented themselves to understanding and intervening in the virus and its progression. The ways in which we live our lives and think about the world are also impacted by scientific knowledge and the technologies that we use. These interactions have also been present throughout the history of science, and have led to interest in the role and responsibility of technoscience for the public good.
Science and technology – captured by the portmanteau word technoscience – are central to life in the vast majority of contemporary societies around the world. They affect us on both individual and collective levels, shaping personal choices and experiences but also policy, politics, and shared futures. Society, technology, scientific knowledge, and everyday experience are intertwined and interconnected, and this book is about those interconnections.
