News From U-M
Raising a child doesn’t take a village, U-M research shows
It doesn't take a village to raise a child after all, according to University of Michigan research. "In the African villages that I study in Mali, children fare as well in nuclear families as they do in extended families," said U-M researcher Beverly Strassmann, professor of anthropology and faculty associate at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). "There's a naïve belief that villages raise children communally, when in reality children are raised by their own families and their survival depends critically on the survival of their mothers." Read More
College of Literature Science & the Arts, Institute for Social Research
Positive thinking: Optimism lowers risk of having stroke
A positive outlook on life might lower the risk of having a stroke, according to a new University of Michigan study. A nationally representative group of 6,044 adults over age 50 rated their optimism levels on a 16-point scale. Each point increase in optimism corresponded to a 9 percent decrease in acute stroke risk over a two-year follow-up period. Researchers analyzed self-reported stroke and psychological data from the ongoing Health and Retirement Study, collected between 2006 and 2008. The findings appear in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. Read More
College of Literature Science & the Arts, Institute for Social Research
A brain training exercise that really does work
Forget about working crossword puzzles and listening to Mozart. If you want to improve your ability to reason and solve new problems, take a few minutes every day to do a maddening little exercise called n-back training. UM psychologist John Jonides presented new findings to the Association for Psychological Science that showed that practicing this kind of task for about 20 minutes each day for 20 days significantly improves performance on a standard test of fluid intelligence—the ability to reason and solve new problems, which is a crucial element of general intelligence. And this improvement lasted for up to three months. Read More
College of Literature Science & the Arts, Institute for Social Research
Air pollution near Michigan schools linked to poorer student health, academic performance
Air pollution from industrial sources near Michigan public schools jeopardizes children's health and academic success, according to a new study from U-M researchers. They found that schools located in areas with the state's highest industrial air pollution levels had the lowest attendance rates—an indicator of poor health—as well as the highest proportions of students who failed to meet state educational testing standards. Minority students appear to bear the greatest burden, according to a research team led by Paul Mohai of the U-M School of Natural Resources and Environment and Byoung-Suk Kweon of the U-M Institute for Social Research. Read More
Environment, Public Health, Social Sciences
Institute for Social Research, School of Natural Resources and Environment
Conscientious people earn more and save more for retirement
Americans who are more conscientious have higher lifetime earnings and save more for retirement, according to researchers at the Michigan Retirement Research Center. Individuals who are at the 85th percentile of conscientiousness earn about $1,500 more per year than the average American, which amounts to about $96,000 more in lifetime earnings and $158,000 more in lifetime savings. "Conscientious people are reliable, meet deadlines and pay their bills on time," said Angela Lee Duckworth, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist and co-author of a paper on the subject with U-M economist David Weir. "They are very hard working and self-disciplined. These are the people who go running, stick to their diets, and tend not to procrastinate." Read More
Real social costs of caring for cognitively impaired elders
The real social costs of cognitive impairments among the elderly are being greatly underestimated without counting care given to older Americans who have not yet reached the diagnostic threshold for dementia. That is the central finding of a U-M- study published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The study is based on data from the Aging, Demographics and Memory study, which examined a nationally representative sample of men and women age 70 and older as a supplement to the U-M Health and Retirement Study, funded primarily by the National Institute on Aging. "We were surprised to learn how much time family members spend caring for loved ones who have some cognitive impairment, but whose impairments are not severe enough to be classified as dementia," said Gwenith Fisher, a psychologist at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). "These caregivers are dealing with many of the burdens of caring for an older, cognitively impaired family member, but they may not be eligible for much of the help available unless the diagnosis is dementia." Read More
U.S. public’s knowledge of science: getting better but a long way to go
Amid concerns about the lagging math and science performance of American children, American adults are actually scoring higher than they did 20 years ago on a widely used index of civic scientific literacy, according to Jon Miller, a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). In 1988, just 10 percent of U.S. adults had sufficient understanding of basic scientific ideas to be able to read the Tuesday Science section of The New York Times, he says. By 2008, 28 percent of adults scored high enough to understand scientific ideas at that level. Read more
U-M taking part in largest comprehensive study of children’s health
The National Children's Study launched in Michigan on Jan. 16, 2011, enrolling Wayne County women between the ages of 18 and 49 who are pregnant or thinking about becoming pregnant in the future. Nationwide, 100,000 families are expected to participate in the study, which is the largest and most comprehensive study of children's health ever conducted. [Read more...]
Public Health, Public Policy, Social Sciences
College of Literature Science & the Arts, Institute for Social Research
Federal stimulus awards to U-M researchers top $300 million
U-M scientists and engineers have been awarded more than 500 federal stimulus-package research grants to date, totaling $301.1 million. The total, through Nov. 30, 2010, places U-M at or near the top of the list among U.S. colleges and universities receiving funding from the $787 billion federal stimulus package, known formally as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. "This is a tremendous validation of the important role that University of Michigan faculty members play in revitalizing the state and national economies," said Stephen Forrest, vice president for research. [Read more...]
Biomedical, Energy, Engineering, Environment, Natural Sciences, Physical Sciences, Public Health, Public Policy, Research Issues, Social Sciences, Tech Transfer
College of Engineering, College of Literature Science & the Arts, College of Pharmacy, Ford School of Public Policy, Institute for Social Research, Medical School, Office of the Vice President for Research, School of Education, School of Information, School of Natural Resources and Environment, School of Public Health
U-M survey of American teens reports changes in alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and ecstasy use
Several important findings come out of this year's Monitoring the Future study, the 36th annual, national survey of American teens in a series that launched in 1975. Marijuana use, which had been rising among teens for the past two years, continues to rise again this year—a sharp contrast to the considerable decline of the preceding decade. The very substantial decrease in teen smoking that began in the mid-1990s has come to a halt among younger teens in the United States, and some evidence of a possible increase in their smoking was observed this year. Ecstasy use—which fell out of favor in the early 2000s as concerns about its dangers grew—appears to be making a comeback this year, following a considerable recent decline in the belief that its use is dangerous. And alcohol use, specifically, occasions of heavy drinking, continues its long-term decline among teens into 2010, reaching historically low levels. [Read more...]