The goal of the Families, Communities, and Health Workshop is to provide a forum where graduate students and faculty can gather to collaborate with each other on research papers that use longitudinal data to test models focusing on parent-child and marital interaction, deviant behavior and mental health, neighborhood conditions, school involvement, peer affiliation, romantic relationships, and physical health. Most papers utilize data collected as part of the Families and Communities Health Study (FACHS) or the Iowa Youth and Families Project (IYFP). Both FACHS and IYFP consist of decades of information collected on several hundred parents and their children. The children in both studies are now adults and the parents are entering their senior years. Study variables were measured using observational, survey, and GIS data. Recent waves of data collection have also included an assessment of health risk factors such as blood pressure BMI as well as blood draws to assess inflammation, blood sugar, and speed of biological aging. These projects are ongoing and have been funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Aging, the National Institute of Mental Health, National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. In 2021, the American Association of Public Opinion Research gave the FACHS project an award which recognizes important data sets, research, and survey methods that have improved the ability to study complex social phenomena related to understudied populations. Students and faculty with common interests identify papers that they would like to pursue together. The workgroup then serves as a medium where the authors can present and get constructive feedback regarding their theoretical model, measures, findings, and form of the manuscript. The basic philosophy of the group is that research is always better when it involves collaboration. What have we learned? These two documents were created in 2021 and 2022 for the parents and their children who have participated in FACHS since the beginning to provide a brief overview of our findings. What we have learned about youth and growing up: What we have learned about middle-age: The FACHS Team Sociology Faculty Ron Simons (Founder / Emeritus & Regents Professor) Man-Kit Lei (Associate Professor / Co-Director Center on Biological Embedding of Social Events and Relationships) Leslie Simons (Meigs Distinguished Professor / Director of Graduate Studies) Kandauda Wickrama (Retired / Emeritus Professor) Steve Beach (Regents Professor - Psychology / Director - Center for Family Research) Sierra Carter (Associate Professor - Psychology / Associate Director - Center for Family Research) Sociology Graduate Students Racheal Weaver Katelyn Austin Collaborators from other Universities Velma Murry (University Distinguished Professor of Human and Organizational Development) Vanderbilt University Tara Sutton (Associate Professor) Mississippi State University Antoinette Landor (Associate Professor) University of Missouri Ashley Bar (Associate Professor / Graduate Director) University at Buffalo Eric Klopack (Professor) Indiana University Patricia Warren (Professor) Florida State University Mark T. Berg (Professor / Director - Center for Social Science Innovation) University of Iowa Michelle M. Mielke (Professor)Wake Forest University
