P30 Pilots

This pilot will examine empathy as a motive for intergenerational inter-vivos transfers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We propose to study how empathy varies with kinship and whether empathy is related to one's willingness to make self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. Adapting an established protocol for measuring pain empathy responses in the human brain with fMRI (Singer et al.

This project investigates whether adult children's educational attainment improves the health of their elderly parents and determines the transfer of monetary and in-kind support to parents using two waves of the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS).

This study will examine the joint contributions of schooling and genetic risk to morbidity and mortality. There is considerable evidence linking genes to a broad spectrum of health outcomes. There is also considerable evidence linking schooling to many of the same outcomes. Indeed, there is growing consensus that, of all the features of socioeconomic status, schooling has the strongest and most robust relationship with health. Nevertheless, few if any studies have combined these interests and explored the role of schooling in moderating genetic risk factors.

Menopause is a biologic marker of aging common to all women. The association between local ecologies and hormone levels in women of reproductive age is well established (Ellison 1994; Nuñez de la Mora et al. 2007): women who live in a nutrient-poor environment tend to have lower levels of reproductive hormone than women who mature in richer environments. There also are differences in how women experience menopause across populations and cultures (Obermeyer and Sievert 2007; Sievert et al. 2007). Are these two findings associated?