Daily HealthBeat Tip

Pride’s payoff

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

A family that’s proud of its background seems to help a kid. A study of black families says that, in some cases, it can offset the effects of a bad neighborhood.

Margaret O’Brien Caughy of the University of Texas School of Public Health in Dallas examined the number of black cultural items, including toys, art and books, in homes in high-risk neighborhoods with problems such as crime. She checked this against the child’s intelligence test scores. Her study, supported by the National Institutes of Health, was in the journal Child Development.

"Having lots of African-American cultural items in the home was associated with more than an eight-point difference in the test scores, compared to children that had relatively few of these kinds of items in their home." (11 seconds)

Caughy believes parents with more cultural items almost literally gave the kids more to think about.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: November 2, 2006

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