Eisenberg, Morales, Martinez, and Guttmannova Publish Study on Lives of Rural Latinx Young Adults
CSDE Affiliates Nicole Eisenberg (Social Development Research Group; The Center for Communities That Care), Leo Morales (Latino Center for Health; General Internal Medicine), Griselda Martinez (Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences), Katarina Guttmannova (Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences) and co-authors recently published an article titled, “A Window Into the Lives of Rural Latinx Young Adults: A Qualitative Study of Adult Roles and Transitions” in the Journal of Community Psychology. The research team described the experiences of a sample of rural Latinx young adults to identify relevant adult roles and events from their unique perspectives at ages 21 and 26 focusing on heterogeneity by age, sex, and immigrant generational status. Rural Latinx young adults identified milestones typical of young adults (e.g., work, school, relationships, family, living arrangements) and diverse pathways into adulthood. They expressed positive and challenging sentiments regarding transitions, but mostly optimism about their futures. Researchers observed heterogeneity within and between ages, sexes, and generational statuses. Increasing work and educational opportunities for Latinx young adults in rural communities can help them navigate this transition.
Casey and Wilner’s Research on Health Effects of 2025 LA Fires Featured in UW Today
Research by CSDE Affiliate Joan Casey (Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences) and CSDE Trainee Lauren Wilner on how the 2025 Los Angeles fires affected people’s health and how people navigated the health care system during an emergency was recently highlighted by UW Today. The underlying article was published in JAMA Health Forum. Casey, Wilner, and coauthors found that there were 8,032 excess outpatient respiratory visits and 3,375 excess virtual cardiovascular and respiratory visits, representing 27% to 44% higher than expected visits among the highly and moderately exposed groups exposed over the week following the LA fires’ ignition. Outpatient and virtual cardiovascular, injury, and neuropsychiatric visits were also elevated at the same time.
Bratman Reviews New and Emerging Evidence on Why Nature Contact is Good for Us
CSDE Affiliate Gregory Bratman (Environmental and Forest Sciences) recently published an article titled, “Why Nature Contact is Good for Us” in Trends in Cognitive Science. Bratman and his co-author James Gross (Stanford) summarize evidence that nature contact has impacts on negative and positive affective functioning, and discuss recent insights into explanatory pathways, including emotion regulation, psychoneuroimmunology, microbiome, sleep, and physical activity. The authors propose that nature contact is linked to affective functioning via these five interacting pathways at a variety of levels and argue that these pathways are not mutually exclusive.
Good Will and Best Wishes to All ~ From CSDE!
As the calendar year comes to a close and UW’s Autumn Quarter wraps up, all of us at CSDE’s offices are grateful to the broader CSDE community! Your good and impactful research, your scholarly generosity, and your curiosity and persistence in tackling tough empirical challenges has inspired and buoyed us during this turbulent year. We are grateful for all that you do and we are honored to continue to support your research programs.
At CSDE we center graduate training as an essential pairing for accomplishing successful research. With support from UW College of Arts & Sciences our certificate program is thriving. Additional support from the Population Dynamics Branch at NICHD and NIH’s Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research, as well as the Shanahan Endowment, provides additional advanced data analytics training through a T32 fellowship or a Max Planck Fellowship. However, some of the most important resources for graduate students are the professional development ones, such as support for travel and research funding. These are only possible through individual donations to our gift funds. As you think about your end-of-year giving, please consider a gift to CSDE’s graduate training – it’s an important investment in the future of demography and CSDE. If you’d like to read more, please see our recent 10-year report to the UW Graduate School.
A valuable component of our training program is CSDE’s weekly seminar. This winter’s seminar series will include talks featuring Andrew Messamore (UW, Sociology), Karin Martin (UW, Public Policy), Avanti Adhia (UW, Nursing), Sarah Komisarow (Duke, Public Policy & Economics), Bussarawan (Puk) Teerawichitchainan (National University of Singapore, Sociology), Kristin Perkins (Georgetown University, Sociology), Gabriella Levy (UW, Political Science, Robert Crosnoe (The University of Texas at Austin, Sociology), and Jake Watson (UC San Diego, Sociology).
CSDE Winter 2026 Seminar Series
January 9th: Andrew Messamore, Sociology, UW
January 19th: Karin Martin, Evans School, UW; Avanti Adhia, Nursing, UW
January 23rd: Sarah Komisarow, Public Policy & Economics, Duke University
January 30th: Bussarawan (Puk) Teerawichitchainan, Sociology, National University of Singapore
February 6th: TBA
February 13th: Kristin Perkins, Sociology, Georgetown University
February 20th: Gabriella Levy, Political Science, UW
February 27th: Robert Crosnoe, Sociology, The University of Texas at Austin
March 6th: Lightning Talks & Poster Session
March 13th: Jake Watson, Sociology, UC San Diego