Dr. Ka I Ip

Influenced by structural racism (e.g., high residential segregation), Black and Hispanic families are disproportionally concentrated in neighborhoods with extreme poverty and unemployment, high exposure to environmental toxins (e.g., air quality and lead), and violent crime. Disparities in neighborhood quality are upstream social determinants of physical and mental health, and their racial/ethnic disparities. Addressing the root cause of mental health problems requires a multilevel, longitudinal approach that incorporates upstream macrosocial causes, as well as probing the biologic mechanisms across time during adolescence – when processes may be more malleable for intervention or prevention. Research integrating these pieces is lacking. Although much descriptive literature has documented how adverse residential contexts (neighborhood and segregation) are associated with adolescent mental health outcomes, there is scant or no research on the neurobiological pathways that explain these links. Leveraging geocoding and polyneurisk score from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study - an ongoing 10-year longitudinal study of 11,880 aged 9-10 multiracial children across 21 metropolitan areas, this lab examines how residential contexts "get under the skin" to confer risk and resilience for developmental psychopathology.