Christopher Rogers Is the 2024-25 HHD Research Fellow

Christopher Rogers, Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Sciences, has been selected as the 2024-2025 Research Fellow for the College of Health and Human Development. For this fellowship, Rogers will expand his current research with a study titled, “Assessing Neighborhood Factor Effects on an Intervention Program and Youth Mental Health.”  We congratulate him on this well deserved honor.

Rogers’ research has focused on the life course effects of youth trauma and identifying ways to better understand the etiology of trauma related health issues and pathways to resilience for trauma exposed people.

There is a wealth of research that has linked the negative consequences of adverse childhood experiences (ACE – stressors in childhood that include elements of household dysfunction, neglect, and abuse) to mental, behavioral, and physical health outcomes. ACE exposed individuals can experience negative consequences both in adolescence as well as throughout their life course. One significant ACE, household incarceration (parent, sibling, extended relative), impacts millions of US children; predominantly youth of color and youth living in low-income communities and as many as 30% of youth living in densely populated urban environments.

Rogers’ fellowship project is building on an existing research study (the SHARE study led by Dr. Myriam Forster) that is evaluating a school-based intervention for teens with incarcerated family members. Forster’s SHARE project is collecting critical data on the health and well-being of youth who have incarcerated family members.

Rogers’ project will leverage the existing data by spatially linking results to data that is related to activity space, neighborhood, and census tract characteristics. Linking this data will allow for research that will look at how proximity and density factors of cannabis dispensaries may impact youths’ substance use behaviors, the effect of distance from jails and prisons, and visitation to jails and prisons, on youth subjective sense of parent bonds and social relationships, and the impact of neighborhood factors (racial diversity, poverty rate) on health and school outcomes.  Rogers will work with the SHARE research team as well as additional Master of Public Health program students to geocode, link, and analyze the incoming data.

The resulting research will be critical given that there is so little data on youth whose family members interact with the justice system and even less that links youth activity space and neighborhoods to health outcomes, developmental outcomes, and school outcomes. These results have the potential to better inform prevention and intervention services for vulnerable youth and young people.

Get to know Christopher Rogers.

Find out more about the CSUN Research Fellows Program.

Sp2024 Christophers Rogers