Hyde, L. W., Mitchell, C., McLoyd, V. C., Meier, H. C. S., Neblett, E. W., & Monk, C. S. (2026). The Study of Adolescent to Adult Neural Development (SAND): Examining the neurobehavioral impacts of poverty-related adversity in the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Cohort. Brain and Environment, Article 100036. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.braen.2026.100036
Abstract
This article describes the motivation for the Study of Adolescent to Adult Neural Development (SAND), an extension of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS). FFCWS is a population-based sample of urban families with enrichment for non-marital births followed since birth. The SAND was started in 2014 and began recruiting a subsample of FFCWS families when youth were 15 years old. Based on the demographics of the included FFCWS cities, SAND has high representation of participants identifying as Black or African American and families with low income. Thus, the cohort focuses on people traditionally under-represented in research, particularly neuroimaging research. SAND has continued to follow and expand the cohort through early adulthood with data collection at age 15 (N = 237), 17 (survey only; N = 189), 21 (N = 518), during COVID (survey only; N = 695), and 24 (ongoing). The goal of the SAND is to examine associations between social inequality, biological embedding (particularly in the brain), and psychopathology with a focus on Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) threat and reward domains, as well as the use of sophisticated computational and quantitative methods. We provide background into the motivations of this study, a cohort profile with a description of the cohort and measures for this publicly available data, and a description of results thus far linking poverty-related adversities to multiple brain and behavior outcomes. We end with a brief discussion of what we have learned while following this cohort, along with recommendations for the field based on this experience.
This article describes the motivation for the Study of Adolescent to Adult Neural Development (SAND), an extension of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS). FFCWS is a population-based sample of urban families with enrichment for non-marital births followed since birth. The SAND was started in 2014 and began recruiting a subsample of FFCWS families when youth were 15 years old. Based on the demographics of the included FFCWS cities, SAND has high representation of participants identifying as Black or African American and families with low income. Thus, the cohort focuses on people traditionally under-represented in research, particularly neuroimaging research. SAND has continued to follow and expand the cohort through early adulthood with data collection at age 15 (N = 237), 17 (survey only; N = 189), 21 (N = 518), during COVID (survey only; N = 695), and 24 (ongoing). The goal of the SAND is to examine associations between social inequality, biological embedding (particularly in the brain), and psychopathology with a focus on Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) threat and reward domains, as well as the use of sophisticated computational and quantitative methods. We provide background into the motivations of this study, a cohort profile with a description of the cohort and measures for this publicly available data, and a description of results thus far linking poverty-related adversities to multiple brain and behavior outcomes. We end with a brief discussion of what we have learned while following this cohort, along with recommendations for the field based on this experience.
Societal significance statement
Decades of research have broadly documented how social inequality shapes child development, with experimental and observational studies indicating that growing up in poverty causes a host of negative outcomes. Research has begun to delineate the proximal social and biological mechanisms through which exposure to poverty and related adversities shape risk for psychopathology. Here we describe the motivation and scientific background for the Study of Adolescent to Adult Neural Development (SAND) with a focus on how poverty “gets under the skin” by shaping brain and biobehavioral development. We describe the SAND cohort for researchers hoping to gain insight into this study and use the publicly available data. Next, we describe findings from the study so far and future scientific directions for our work and needs in the field.
Decades of research have broadly documented how social inequality shapes child development, with experimental and observational studies indicating that growing up in poverty causes a host of negative outcomes. Research has begun to delineate the proximal social and biological mechanisms through which exposure to poverty and related adversities shape risk for psychopathology. Here we describe the motivation and scientific background for the Study of Adolescent to Adult Neural Development (SAND) with a focus on how poverty “gets under the skin” by shaping brain and biobehavioral development. We describe the SAND cohort for researchers hoping to gain insight into this study and use the publicly available data. Next, we describe findings from the study so far and future scientific directions for our work and needs in the field.
Keywords
Poverty; Neuroimaging; Adversity; Resilience; Psychopathology; Longitudinal
Poverty; Neuroimaging; Adversity; Resilience; Psychopathology; Longitudinal