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This article is was written by Pooka Makhijani earlier this year. Here are some excerpts:
"The importance of these findings for research on the social sources of health — and health disparities” in the United States can hardly be overstated, said Christopher Wildeman, an associate professor of policy analysis and management
in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University and the co-director of the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect, who earned his Ph.D. in sociology at Princeton. Wildeman is familiar with the research but had no role in it.
By showing that three causes of paternal absence decrease telomere length, a core biological indicator of health, the authors are able to provide insight into a direct biological channel through which paternal absence could affect the health of their children, Wildeman added. Moreover, because each of these causes of paternal absence are unequally distributed in the population, these findings have important implications for how we think about health disparities in the United States.
We all know that resources are limited and are becoming more limited, Notterman said. But by understanding that a social and familial phenomenon the loss of a father” has biological effects which are plausibly linked with the future well-being of a child, we now have a rationale for prioritizing resource allocations to the children who are most vulnerable.
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