ArticlePediatrics2017
Father Loss and Child Telomere Length.
Article in Pediatrics, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 65 citations in OpenAlex.
- Epigenetic regulation of brain development, plasticity, and response to early-life stress.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Development and pilot testing of a risk assessment checklist for children of incarcerated parents in Hong Kong.Frontiers in sociology · 2026Article
- The biological consequences of grandparental death for children: An analysis of telomere length.SSM - population health · 2025Article
- The role of optimism, connectedness, and neighborhood collective efficacy as moderators of harsh parenting on telomere length.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Childhood Adversity and Telomere Length.Biological research for nursing · 2025Article
- Empty chairs at the dinner table: Black-white disparities in exposure to household member deaths.SSM - population health · 2024Article
- Associations Between Early Life Adversity and Youth Psychobiological Outcomes: Dimensional and Person-Centered Approaches.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2023Article
- Paternal Incarceration, Race and Ethnicity, and Maternal Health.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2023Article
- The interaction of socioeconomic stress and race on telomere length in children: A systematic review and meta-analysis.SSM - population health · 2023Article
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- Article
- Psychosocial Factors and Telomere Length Among Parents and Infants of Immigrant Arab American Families.Biological research for nursing · 2023Article
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- Multiple Family Member Deaths and Cardiometabolic Health among Black and White Older Adults.Journal of health and social behavior · 2022Article
- Early life trauma and adult leucocyte telomere length.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2022Article
- Parental imprisonment as a risk factor for cardiovascular and metabolic disease in adolescent and adult offspring: A prospective Australian birth cohort study.SSM - population health · 2022Article
- Integrating DNA Methylation Measures of Biological Aging into Social Determinants of Health Research.Current environmental health reports · 2022Review
- Parental incarceration and child physical health outcomes from infancy to adulthood: A critical review and multilevel model of potential pathways.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2022Review
- The Longitudinal Associations Between Paternal Incarceration and Family Well-Being: Implications for Ethnic/Racial Disparities in Health.Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2022Article
- What are the Origins of Chronic Back Pain of "Obscure Origins"? Turning Toward Family and Workplace Social Contexts.The Yale journal of biology and medicine · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
objectivesFather loss during childhood has negative health and behavioral consequences, but the biological consequences are unknown. Our goal was to examine how father loss (because of separation and/or divorce, death, or incarceration) is associated with cellular function as estimated by telomere length.
methodsData come from the 9-year follow-up of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a birth cohort study of children in 20 large American cities (
resultsAt 9 years of age, children with father loss have significantly shorter telomeres (14% reduction). Paternal death has the largest association (16%), followed by incarceration (10%), and separation and/or divorce (6%). Changes in income partially mediate these associations (95% mediation for separation and/or divorce, 30% for incarceration, and 25% for death). Effects are 40% greater for boys and 90% greater for children with the most reactive alleles of the serotonin transporter genes when compared with those with the least reactive alleles. No differences were found by age at father loss or a child's race/ethnicity.
conclusionsFather loss has a significant association with children's sTL, with the death of a father showing the largest effect. Income loss explains most of the association between child sTL and separation and/or divorce but much less of the association with incarceration or death. This underscores the important role of fathers in the care and development of children and supplements evidence of the strong negative effects of parental incarceration.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.