The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD Study): The Role of SES

• In Event: National Institute of Health Funding to Address Pediatric Health Disparities

Abstract

Introduction: The U.S. Census Bureau in 2017 estimated that about 38.8% of children in the U.S. were low socioeconomic status (SES), living in households with incomes ranging from deep poverty to near poverty. Research findings have consistently demonstrated that low SES is a risk factor for cognitive and brain development (Duncan & Magnuson, 2012; Farah et al. 2017). However, less studied are the proximal processes in the child’s environment that may relate to cognitive and brain development across the SES spectrum.
Hypotheses: We hypothesized that while lower SES children would show lower cognitive scores and lower cortical surface area compared to their higher SES peers, positive ecologies encompassing better economic, psychosocial, physiological and perinatal well-being would predict better cognitive scores and higher total cortical surface area across the SES spectrum.
Study Population: Baseline data for the longitudinal Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study were analyzed for a total of 8,158 9-10-year-old children. The ABCD study is one of the largest and most diverse cohort of children studied in the United States.
Methods: SES was measured by the income-to-needs ratio (INR), an index that compares a household income relative to the federal poverty threshold given a household size. General additive mixed effect models were used to test cross-sectional associations between income-to-needs and cognitive scores and total cortical surface area, while controlling for age, sex, race/ethnicity and random effects of study site and family relationship. We then conducted a latent factor analysis to identify relationships among 22 proximal measures in the economic, psychosocial, physiological, and perinatal ecologies of children. We tested associations between these latent factors encompassing environmental ecologies for children and developmental measures across the SES spectrum.
Results: Low SES was associated with lower total cortical surface area and worse cognitive performance, although apparent differences were still visible beyond the level of economic disadvantage in the range of 200% - 400% INR. Three latent factors (LFs) emerged describing positive ecologies for children across the areas of economic, psychosocial, physiological and perinatal well-being and were associated with better cognitive performance and higher total cortical surface area beyond the effects of SES. LFs for youth perceived social support and perinatal well-being were positive predictors of developmental measures for all children, regardless of SES. Further, a general LF captured relationships across 20 of the proximal measures and described a joint ecology of high socioeconomic resource relative to low adversity across psychosocial, physiological, and perinatal domains. The association between this resource-to-adversity LF and cognitive performance was moderated by SES, such that for children from lower SES households, cognitive performance increased among children with relative high-resource to low-adversity.
Conclusion: Our findings suggest that positive ecologies of economic, psychosocial, physiological and perinatal well-being are important for cognitive and brain development across the SES spectrum. Increased resources relative to lower adversity may be especially important for better cognitive development in children from low SES households. Our findings inform future studies aiming to examine positive factors that influence healthier development in children.

Authors

• Marybel Robledo Gonzalez, University of California - San Diego
  Presenting Author

• Clare E. Palmer, University of California San Diego
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristina A. Uban, University of California Irvine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Terry L. Jernigan, University of California - San Diego
  Non-Presenting Author

• Wesley K Thompson, University of California San Diego
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elizabeth R. Sowell, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, University of Southern California Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gaya Dowling, NIH/NIDA
  Non-Presenting Author

• Beda Jean-Francois, NIH/NCCIH
  Non-Presenting Author