Fletcher will look at how policies (e.g. tobacco taxation, marijuana decriminalization) interact with individual genetic factors to shape youth’s health behavior and outcomes. He also plans to study how schools, peer networks, and family dynamics interact with genetic factors to shape these outcomes. The investigator develop new expertise in genetics and the sociology of peer and family interactions with help from his mentors— Joel Gelernter, professor of genetics, neurobiology, and psychiatry at Yale University; and Dalton Conley, professor of sociology at New York University.
Can genetics explain why social policies, schools, and peers have different effects on different groups of youth?
