Books and Publications

More than nine million children in the United States are overweight, a figure that has tripled since the 1970s. Overweight children are more likely to suffer psychological and physical health problems in their youth, and those problems are likely to follow them to adulthood. Obesity may be the number-one health problem facing children today. That

Many U.S. youth ages 14 to 22 expect to die before age 30, according to a new study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.  About one out of 15 young people (6.7 percent) expressed such “unrealistic fatalism,” the study concludes. “I am surprised that one in 15 young Americans report they will die so

Google’s decision to spend $3.1 billion to buy little-known DoubleClick will affect the future of American media and the way advertisers tell stories about you and me,” writes Joseph Turow in an op-ed published in today’s San Francisco Chronicle. Turow, who studies the media, the internet and advertising, urges federal scrutiny of the acquisition because

Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, co-authors of UnSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation, described their findings in a May 15th interview on WHYY-FM’s Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane. The book, published last month by Random House, has been described as “the secret decoder ring for the 21st-century world of disinformation.” Jackson, who directs

In June 2005, a distinguished group of researchers gathered at the University of Pennsylvania to synthesize recent developments in the field of adolescent brain development and their implications for the prevention of mental disorder. The results have been released in a new volume, Adolescent Psychopathology and the Developing Brain: Integrating Brain and Prevention Science, published

Federal funding of abstinence-only education is fiscally, politically and scientifically irresponsible, writes Amy Bleakley in a column published in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer. Bleakley, a research scientist in the Health Communication Group of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, notes that studies confirm the programs are ineffective in preventing or delaying sexual activity among teens. They are losing political support among

Joseph Turow co-authored an op-ed article published today in the San Francisco Chronicle. “Why Marketers Want Inside Your Medicine Cabinet” describes the potential threats to privacy if personal health records are posted online by a for-profit marketer of health information. WebMD, an online provider of health information, recently announced a free service that will allow

Capturing Campaign Dynamics, 2000 and 2004: The National Annenberg Election Survey, written by Daniel Romer, Kate Kenski, Kenneth Winneg, Christopher Adasiewicz and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, has been published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. The book analyzes the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, two of the most contested and dramatic in this nation’s history.

Although most parents agree that their kids should watch less television, they also aren’t certain how to pull the plug, according to a new study by researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, RTI International in Research Triangle Park, N.C., and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Abstinence-only sex education programs – a favorite of the Bush administration but criticized by many health experts – are not supported by a large majority of the American public, regardless of their political or religious ideologies, a new survey has found. Eighty percent of those surveyed favored a sex education curriculum that includes information about