# Children's academic competence in contexts of risk:  Longitudinal relations with sleep and physical health in adolescence

> **NIH NIH R03** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE · 2020 · $82,504

## Abstract

Children's academic competence in contexts of risk:
Longitudinal relations with sleep and physical health in adolescence
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
In the United States, ~1 in 5 children grows up in poverty. Although poverty and its associated risks predict a
range of negative outcomes, many children evidence resilience (i.e., competent adaptation despite adversity).
Resilience research has led to the development and implementation of intervention programs to promote
positive development among adversity-exposed youth. Unfortunately, recent data suggest that children who
evidence competent adaptation in contexts of adversity may experience later physical health problems, as
indicated by biological markers of chronic physiological stress (i.e., allostatic load) and early cellular aging.
That said, extant studies documenting potential “costs of coping” have focused primarily on African American
samples, with little consideration of moderating or mediating mechanisms. The proposed study will address
these limitations by evaluating relations among children’s academic competence and physical health problems
as a function of poverty-related risk exposure in a large and diverse community sample that has been followed
from the preschool period into adolescence. Further, we will evaluate supportive parenting and ethnic identity
as potential protective factors that may mitigate these health costs, and adolescents’ sleep dysregulation as a
putative mediator of the negative health effects associated with resilience.
This research will capitalize on the added value of seven completed waves of multilevel, multimethod, multi-
informant assessments of competence, adversity, and adaptation in a diverse sample of 250 child-caregiver
dyads (50% female; 46% Latinx; 37.6% poverty) at ages 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 12 with outstanding retention
(95.6% have returned for follow-ups). Extending to include a new assessment of sleep and health at age 14,
this study will provide an unprecedented opportunity to 1) evaluate relations among academic competence,
poverty-related risk exposure, and adolescent physical health in diverse ethnic groups, particularly Latinx
youth, 2) elucidate putative protective factors that reduce the health costs of academic resilience, and 3) test
sleep dysregulation as a mediating mechanism underlying the pathway from resilience to health problems.
Spanning a decade of development from ages 4-14, this study will address NICHD’s high priority areas to
understand contextual factors that impact adaptive behavior, and the psychosocial adjustment of individuals in
high-risk contexts. Moreover, we focus on adolescence as a period of major developmental reorganization that
is characterized by increased vulnerability to dysregulated sleep and health problems, as well as untapped
opportunity for intervention and amelioration. Expected findings will document the scope and generalizability of
resilience costs, while illuminating pathways by which interventions ma...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9848569
- **Project number:** 5R03HD097623-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
- **Principal Investigator:** Stacey N. Doan
- **Activity code:** R03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $82,504
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-01-10 → 2021-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9848569

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9848569, Children's academic competence in contexts of risk:  Longitudinal relations with sleep and physical health in adolescence (5R03HD097623-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9848569. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*