Publications

Fraemke, D. (2026). The end of cognitive meritocracy. AI & Society, 41, 4177–4178. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-026-02856-7

Raffington, L. (2026). Academia is just a job. Nature Human Behaviour, 10(1), 3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02376-2

Raffington, L. (in press). Molecular adaptations to county-level social inequality. JAMA Network Open.

Raffington, L., Willems, Y. E., Sperber, J. F., Zarandooz, S. Z., Costanzo, M. A., Notterman, D. A., Mitchell, C., Tucker-Drob, E. M., Duncan, G. J., Fox, N. A., Gennetian, L. A., Magnuson, K., Troller-Renfree, S. V., Yoshikawa, H., Binder, E. B., Harden, K. P., & Noble, K. G. (in press). Effects of a randomized controlled trial of unconditional cash transfers on epigenetic measures of aging and cognition in children and mothers. Nature Human Behaviour.

Sperber Knott, J. F., Miller, M., Bellatin, A., Dettmer, A. M., Champagne, F. A., & Noble, K. G. (2026). The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on young children’s biological ageing. Child Development. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/chidev/aacag034

Straub, V. J., Harerimana, N. V., Alajääskö, L. I. A., Ordonez Beltran, S., Bülbül, A., López-Nieto Veitch, T., Peng, Q., De Sabbata, R., & Talens, M. (in press). Early career researcher-led best practices for social science and behavioural genetics. Nature Human Behaviour.

Willems, Y. E., Rezaki, A. D., Aikins, M., Bahl, A., Wu, Q., Belsky, D. W., & Raffington, L. (in press). Social determinants of health and epigenetic clocks: Meta-analysis of 140 studies. Nature Human Behaviour.

Xie, J. K., Caspi, A., Harris, K. M., Aiello, A., Harrington, H., Houts, R., Kositzke, C., Belsky, D. W., Raffington, L., Belsky, J., Ramrakha, S., Theodore, R. F., & Moffitt, T. E. (in press). Do children who develop faster go on to age faster in midlife? Psychological Science.

Zhou, Q., Liao, W., Allegrini, A. G., Rimfeld, K., Wertz, J., Morris, T. T., Raffington, L., Plomin, R., & Malanchini, M. (in press). From genetic disposition to academic achievement: The mediating role of non-cognitive skills across development. Nature Communications.

Aikins, M. A. N., Ansah, W., Goosby, B., & Raffington, L. (2025). Everywhere and every day: The impact of navigating racialization on Black German children's mental health. Frontiers in Public Health, 13, Article 1658945. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1658945

Aikins, M., Willems, Y., Fraemke, D., Mitchell, C., Goosby, B., & Raffington, L. (2025). Linked emergence of racial disparities in mental health and epigenetic biological aging across childhood and adolescence. Molecular Psychiatry, 30, 4296–4306. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-025-03010-3

deSteiguer, A. J., Raffington, L., Sabhlok, A., Tanksley, P., Tucker-Drob, E. M., & Harden, K. P. (2025). Stability of aging- and cognition-related methylation profile scores across two waves in children and adolescents. Child Development, 96(3), 1189–1206. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14239

deSteiguer, A. J., Smith, T., Goode, J. A., Willems, Y. E., Schowe, A. M., Czamara, D., Mönkediek, B., Pahnke, C. K. L., Forstner, A. J., Binder, E. B., Schneper, L., Notterman, D. A., Tucker-Drob, E. M., Raffington, L., Mitchell, C., & Harden, K. P. (2025). Salivary DNA methylation and pubertal development in adolescents. Scientific Reports, 15, Article 35970. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-19588-1

Fraemke, D., Willems, Y. E., Okbay, A., Lindenberger, U., Zinn, S., Wagner, G., Richter, D., Harden, K. P., Tucker-Drob, E. M., Hertwig, R., Koellinger, P., & Raffington, L. (2025). Polygenic associations with educational attainment in East versus West Germany: Differences emerge after reunification. Psychological Science, 36(7), 559–573. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976251350965

Harerimana, N. V., Liu, Y., & Ruks, M. (2025). Neighborhood context, genetic influences, and life satisfaction: Evidence from the German twin family panel. PLoS ONE, 20(8), Article e0316416. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0316416

Tanksley, P. T., Brislin, S. J., Wertz, J., de Vlaming, R., Courchesne-Krak, N. S., Mallard, T. T., Raffington, L. L., Karlsson Linnér, R., Koellinger, P., Palmer, A. A., Sanchez-Roige, S., Waldman, I. D., Dick, D., Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., & Harden, K. P. (2025). Do polygenic indices capture "direct" effects on child externalizing behavior problems? Within-family analyses in two longitudinal birth cohorts. Clinical Psychological Science, 13(2), 316–331. https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026241260260

Wu, Q., Bosanac, M., Shokhirev, M. N., & Raffington, L. (2025). Probing buccal-customized epigenetic clocks to investigate socioeconomic and health disparities. GeroScience. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-025-01907-z

Wu, Q., Klopack, E. T., Kim, J. K., Arpawong, T. E., Thyagarajan, B., Cole, S., Faul, J. D., Zhou, F., & Crimmins, E. M. (2025). Gene expression composite scores of cellular senescence predict aging health outcomes in the health and retirement study. Nature Communications, 16, Article 9044. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-64835-8

Zarandooz, S., & Raffington, L. (2025). Applying blood-derived epigenetic algorithms to saliva: Cross-tissue similarity of DNA-methylation indices of aging, physiology, and cognition. Clinical Epigenetics, 17, Article 61. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13148-025-01868-2

Aikins, M. A. N., Willems, Y. E., Fraemke, D., & Raffington, L. (2024). Beyond a shared history: A biosocial perspective on sociogenomics and racism in Germany. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 76, 573–602. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-024-00934-6