Rosenbaum, Janet

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Biography
Janet Rosenbaum uses causal inference methods to study adolescent and young adult reproductive and sexual health, especially relationship power imbalances and biomarkers of semen exposure. She also studies education as a social determinant of health, including school discipline policy and community college completion. She completed her Ph.D., A.M., and A.B. at Harvard University and postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and has held a research-track faculty position at the University of Maryland at College Park. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics (tenure-track) at the SUNY Downstate School of Public Health in Brooklyn, and serves on the American Public Health Association Governing Council representing the statistics section. 
Institutional profile
Academic Qualifications: Postdoctoral Fellowship: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health PhD: Harvard University MA: Harvard University Background and Expertise: Janet Rosenbaum studies educational and economic factors in adolescent health. Her methodological expertise is in causal inference methods such as matched sampling. Her current projects include high school suspension (funded by the Spencer Foundation), community colleges (funded by the American Educational Research Association), and coerced unsafe sex and pregnancy. Dr. Rosenbaum completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health under a Centers for Disease Control sexually transmitted diseases training grant. She also earned a Ph.D. in health policy and statistics, an M.A. in statistics, and a B.A. in physics, all from Harvard University. Her dissertation studied virginity pledges and adolescents' inconsistent reporting of their sexual histories, and was covered by media including the New York Times, National Public Radio, and Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update. Areas of Study Health behaviors of community college students Community college students are a large and growing portion of the young adult population in the United States. Little public health research has focused on this group. This project --- currently funded by the American Educational Research Association, and funded in the past by the American Institutes for Research from a Gates Foundation grant --- characterizes the community college student population. Studies include quantification of educational health disparities between community college graduates versus other young adults (Health Services and Outcomes Research Methodology, in press), a longitudinal case-control study to identify factors that predict community college graduation, and identification of health risk behaviors of community college students. Out-of-school suspension and expulsion and adolescent risk behavior In 2003, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement that out-of-school suspension and expulsion "jeopardize children's health and safety." Schools make more liberal use of out-of-school expulsion and suspension than in the past, but little or no public health research has tested the outcomes for students who were suspended or expelled. This project, funded by the Spencer Foundation, quantifies long-term educational and risk behavior outcomes of students who were suspended/expelled from school, and identifies groups that are more strongly affected. Economic factors in adolescents' sexual behavior Some youths obtain spending money from their romantic partners. Past research has found that non-romantic relationships in which money is exchanged directly for sex are risky, but we know little about risks associated with romantic relationships that include economic exchanges. Dr. Rosenbaum found that condom non-use is twice as common among adolescent girls whose boyfriends are their primary source of spending money, compared with girls who have other sources. Employment may help adolescents stay independent but may pose other problems. Selected Honors Population Association of America, poster prize, 2012 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine Early Investigators' Award finalist (one of 4), 2011 Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM), poster prize, 2008

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 27
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    PublicationOpen Access
    True love waits: do Southern Baptists? Premarital sexual behavior among newly married Southern Baptist Sunday school students.
    (2011-01-28) Rosenbaum, Janet E; Weathersbee, Byron
    This study measures premarital sex prevalence, sources of sex education, and support for secular sex education among 151 newly married young adults surveyed at 9 Texas Southern Baptist churches. More than 70% of respondents reported having had premarital vaginal or oral sex, but more than 80% regretted premarital sex. The proportion of premarital sex exceeded 80% in 6 of 9 churches, among men and women married after age 25 and women married before age 21. School sex education was the only source of information about sexually transmitted infections for 57% of respondents, and 65% supported secular sex education despite church opposition.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Telling truth from Ys: an evaluation of whether the accuracy of self-reported semen exposure assessed by a semen Y-chromosome biomarker predicts pregnancy in a longitudinal cohort study of pregnancy.
    (2014-03-13) Rosenbaum, Janet E; Zenilman, Jonathan; Melendez, Johan; Rose, Eve; Wingood, Gina; DiClemente, Ralph
    Adolescents may use condoms inconsistently or incorrectly, or may over-report condom use. This study used a semen exposure biomarker to evaluate the accuracy of female adolescents' reports of condom use and predict subsequent pregnancy.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Associations between Civic Engagement and Community College Completion in a Nationally Representative Sample of Young Adults.
    (2020-02-11) Rosenbaum, Janet E
    Educational attainment is associated with voting and political trust, but less is known about whether voting and political trust are associated with subsequently higher educational attainment. In a sample of voting-age two-year college students in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent and Adult Health (=1212), this study identified three markers of civic engagement in 2001 associated with greater attainment of certificates, associates degrees, and bachelor's degrees in 2008: voting, trusting the federal government, and affiliating with a political party. To minimize confounding, we used multivariate regression after exact and nearest-neighbor Mahalanobis matching within propensity score calipers on pre-college parent and adolescent socioeconomic status, demographics, educational expectations, health status, and parent civic participation. Voting in the 2000 presidential election was associated with greater likelihood of attaining a BA, or above; trusting the federal government was associated with greater likelihood of earning a certificate, associate's degree, or BA or above; and affiliating with a political party predicted greater likelihood of earning an associate's degree or BA, or above. These results suggest that two-year colleges that encourage voter registration and political activities may increase their students' engagement and educational attainment.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Reproductive coercion sometimes works: evaluating whether young African-American women who experience reproductive coercion or birth control sabotage are more likely to become pregnant.
    (2020-07-27) Rosenbaum, Janet E; DiClemente, Ralph J
    Men engaging in reproductive coercion may coerce, force, or deceive female partners into pregnancy. This study evaluates whether the 3-month incidence of pregnancy is higher among women reporting reproductive coercion than similar women reporting no reproductive coercion. We tested this hypothesis in longitudinal data from a sample of African-American women ages 18-24 recruited from community settings in Atlanta, Georgia, US, in 2012-2014 (n = 560). Participants were surveyed at baseline, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and 12 months. To reduce selection bias, we used full matching on 22 baseline variables related to demographics, economic power, risky alcohol use, and gender-based power inequality. We used logistic regression in the matched sample with outcome pregnancy 3 months later, controlling for baseline fertility intentions (n = 482, n = 458, n = 452 at respectively 3, 6, 9 months). At 3 months, 15% of women reported reproductive coercion. At 6 months, 11.3% of women reporting coercion were pregnant vs. 4.6% of matched women reporting no coercion ( = 0.06). Women reporting coercion had 3 times the odds of pregnancy as matched women reporting no coercion (AOR 2.95, 95% CI (1.16, 6.98),  = 0.02). Among women pregnant after coercion, only 15% wanted to be pregnant then or sooner. Women reporting reproductive coercion are at greater risk of unwanted or mistimed pregnancies, and the semen exposure that caused these pregnancies could also transmit STI/HIV. Clinicians should screen patients for reproductive coercion; consider using semen exposure biomarkers such as PSA or Yc-PCR to identify condom sabotage or stealthing; and refer women experiencing reproductive coercion to supportive services.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    School suspension predicts trichomoniasis five years later in a matched sample.
    (2020-01-20) Rosenbaum, Janet E
    Young adults who were suspended from school during adolescence are more likely than matched non-suspended youth to be arrested, on probation, or not graduate from high school, which are STI risk factors. This study evaluates whether suspension is a marker for STI risk among young adults who avoid subsequent negative effects.
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    PublicationOpen Access
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Blood pressure in children with sickle cell disease is higher than in the general pediatric population.
    (2022-09-15) Kupferman, Juan C; Rosenbaum, Janet E; Lande, Marc B; Stabouli, Stella; Wang, Yongsheng; Forman, Daniella; Zafeiriou, Dimitrios I; Pavlakis, Steven G
    Sickle cell disease (SCD) is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease that may be due to a variety of possible risk factors, including abnormal blood pressure. Blood pressure (BP) of children and adolescents with SCD has been reported to be lower compared to the BP of the general pediatric population.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Do Jobs Work? Risk and Protective Behaviors Associated with Employment Among Disadvantaged Female Teens in Urban Atlanta.
    Rosenbaum, Janet; Zenilman, Jonathan; Rose, Eve; Wingood, Gina; DiClemente, Ralph
    Adolescent employment predicts lower educational engagement and achievement and greater engagement with risk behaviors. Most research has studied middle class rather than disadvantaged adolescents. We identified risk and protective behaviors associated with employment using data from a 3-wave, 12-month study of 715 low-socio-economic status female African American adolescents who were ages 15-21 at baseline. Adolescents who were employed at wave 2 (n=214) were matched with adolescents who were not employed at wave 2 (n=422) using nearest-neighbor matching on baseline factors within propensity score calipers on factors including marijuana use, sex while high, pregnancy risk, and socioeconomic status. We compared employed and non-employed teens on risk behaviors including marijuana use, sex while high or drunk, and a biomarker for semen exposure in the past 14 days. Employed teens were 44% as likely to say that their boyfriend is their primary spending money source and 43% as likely to be emotionally abused, but these benefits did not persist after employment ended. Six months after employment, employed respondents reported using marijuana 57% more often and had sex while drunk or high 2.7 times as frequently. Women who were employed at both waves 2 and 3 were 17% as likely to have their boyfriend as a primary source of spending money and 13% more likely to graduate high school, but they used marijuana twice as often, alcohol 1.6 times as often, had 1.6 times as many sexual partners, and had sex while high or drunk 2.3 times as often. Female teens who work may avoid potentially coercive romantic relationships, but they may buy drugs or alcohol with their earnings.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Truth or consequences: the intertemporal consistency of adolescent self-report on the Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
    (2009-04-10) Rosenbaum, Janet E
    Surveys are the primary information source about adolescents' health risk behaviors, but adolescents may not report their behaviors accurately. Survey data are used for formulating adolescent health policy, and inaccurate data can cause mistakes in policy creation and evaluation. The author used test-retest data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (United States, 2000) to compare adolescents' responses to 72 questions about their risk behaviors at a 2-week interval. Each question was evaluated for prevalence change and 3 measures of unreliability: inconsistency (retraction and apparent initiation), agreement measured as tetrachoric correlation, and estimated error due to inconsistency assessed with a Bayesian method. Results showed that adolescents report their sex, drug, alcohol, and tobacco histories more consistently than other risk behaviors in a 2-week period, opposite their tendency over longer intervals. Compared with other Youth Risk Behavior Survey topics, most sex, drug, alcohol, and tobacco items had stable prevalence estimates, higher average agreement, and lower estimated measurement error. Adolescents reported their weight control behaviors more unreliably than other behaviors, particularly problematic because of the increased investment in adolescent obesity research and reliance on annual surveys for surveillance and policy evaluation. Most weight control items had unstable prevalence estimates, lower average agreement, and greater estimated measurement error than other topics.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Excess mortality in the United States during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
    (2020-10-29) Rivera, R; Rosenbaum, J E; Quispe, W
    Deaths are frequently under-estimated during emergencies, times when accurate mortality estimates are crucial for emergency response. This study estimates excess all-cause, pneumonia and influenza mortality during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic using the 11 September 2020 release of weekly mortality data from the United States (U.S.) Mortality Surveillance System (MSS) from 27 September 2015 to 9 May 2020, using semiparametric and conventional time-series models in 13 states with high reported COVID-19 deaths and apparently complete mortality data: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington. We estimated greater excess mortality than official COVID-19 mortality in the U.S. (excess mortality 95% confidence interval (CI) 100 013-127 501 vs. 78 834 COVID-19 deaths) and 9 states: California (excess mortality 95% CI 3338-6344) vs. 2849 COVID-19 deaths); Connecticut (excess mortality 95% CI 3095-3952) vs. 2932 COVID-19 deaths); Illinois (95% CI 4646-6111) vs. 3525 COVID-19 deaths); Louisiana (excess mortality 95% CI 2341-3183 vs. 2267 COVID-19 deaths); Massachusetts (95% CI 5562-7201 vs. 5050 COVID-19 deaths); New Jersey (95% CI 13 170-16 058 vs. 10 465 COVID-19 deaths); New York (95% CI 32 538-39 960 vs. 26 584 COVID-19 deaths); and Pennsylvania (95% CI 5125-6560 vs. 3793 COVID-19 deaths). Conventional model results were consistent with semiparametric results but less precise. Significant excess pneumonia deaths were also found for all locations and we estimated hundreds of excess influenza deaths in New York. We find that official COVID-19 mortality substantially understates actual mortality, excess deaths cannot be explained entirely by official COVID-19 death counts. Mortality reporting lags appeared to worsen during the pandemic, when timeliness in surveillance systems was most crucial for improving pandemic response.