Epidemiology is about making sense of data towards the goal of improving population health. This wide scope encourages a multidisciplinary perspective and has supported my research on children and families. I feel lucky to have found a home in public health. Sarah Anderson's research focuses on understanding psychosocial influences on children's growth and development with a particular focus on childhood obesity prevention.
Active projects include a longitudinal study of mealtimes and self-regulation in toddlers in collaboration with Nationwide Children's Hospital, as well as analyses of the UK Millenium Cohort Study and the Growing Up in New Zealand Study. Funded by the NIH, USDA, and AHA, she has mentored students at the doctoral, masters, and undergraduate level and teaches courses on obesity epidemiology, introduction to epidemiology, survey methodology, and PhD research seminar.
Variability in parenting behaviors during play and during mealtimes with toddlers. Infant and Child Development ; e Association between maternal closeness with parents and mother-toddler relationship quality. Family Relations BMJ Open ; e Knowledge of infant development and parent well-being: cross-sectional analysis of toddlers. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics ; 42 6 : Impact of life events on short-term change in BMI in early and middle childhood.
Obesity ; Early mother-child dyadic pathways to childhood obesity risk: a conceptual model. Appetite ; Residential mobility in early childhood and obesity at kindergarten-age among children from the United States.
Pediatric Obesity ; 15 2 : e Associations between parenting behavior and executive function among preschool-aged children born very preterm. Early Childhood Research Quarterly ; Association of self-regulation with obesity in boys vs girls in a US national sample. JAMA Pediatrics.
