Guide to Navigating this Research Archive
Here you will find research articles published by IDHP researchers that are related to our primary scientific foci: the interconnected mental health of children and their caregivers, the intergenerational impact of stressful experiences on mental and physical health, and interventions and other buffers that support family wellness.
In the right sidebar, you can search this archive by research topic, as well as by research study (you can read about each study on the Current Projects page). Each archive entry has a simple summary, the full scientific abstract, and a link to the full article. Most of the articles in this research archive are available open access (i.e., you can access it without a subscription). If you are trying to access an article and aren't able to see the full version, please email us at idhp@ucsf.edu, and we would be happy to assist.
Filtered By:
October 17, 2020
Biomarkers
CANDLE Study
Childhood adversity
Stress during pregnancy
This study looked at the effects of childhood trauma on pregnant people's placental Corticotrophin-Releasing Hormone (pCRH) levels, which can impact the health of both the mother and child. Researchers found that exposure to childhood abuse or violence predicted higher levels of pCRH later in pregnancy, but stressors during adulthood nor pregnancy did not affect pCRH. The study highlights the importance of recognizing and addressing childhood trauma in pregnant people to promote better health outcomes for them and their children.
July 30, 2020
Child mental & behavioral health
Childhood adversity
CTRP-Health Study
This study examined whether trauma exposure, trauma symptoms, and executive functioning are related in childhood. Associations between trauma exposure, trauma-related symptomatology and children’s executive functioning were not detected, suggesting that associations between child maltreatment, neglect, and other traumas and EF-related outcomes may be particularly nuanced. The null findings here highlight the need for consideration of this complexity in future research examining pathways between trauma exposure and cognitive functioning.
January 1, 2020
Biomarkers
Childhood adversity
This editorial comments on a recent study by Rasmussen & colleagues (2019), which assessed soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR), a potentially useful immune biomarker of early-life adversity. This discovery offers a foundation for precision medicine strategies in pediatrics to prevent longer-term impacts of stress on the body that confers a risk of disease across the life course. Large data sets, including this study of suPAR and beyond, will be crucial to the identification of novel markers with broad population relevance. However, to progress from markers to biologically informed treatments, we must elucidate for whom, under what circumstances, and by what mechanisms trauma leads to inflammation.
October 23, 2018
Biomarkers
Childhood adversity
Researchers aimed to study how childhood social adversity affects health across the lifespan by examining changes in child DNA methylation (when a 'tag' is added to DNA, turning it on or off). They found that family income, parental education, and family psychosocial adversity were associated with DNA methylation in unique sets of gene sequences related to immune and developmental regulation functions. These findings support the use of DNA methylation as a biomarker for the long-term health effects of childhood social experiences.
June 1, 2018
Biomarkers
Child physical health
Childhood adversity
Protective factors
This study looked at how neighborhood resources and family income affect children's health. Children from families with less money often have worse health, but this study found that children who live in neighborhoods with more opportunities were less affected by their family's financial situation. This suggests that improving neighborhoods' resources and opportunities would likely improve the health of children and families.
December 5, 2017
Child mental & behavioral health
Childhood adversity
CTRP-Health Study
Interconnected maternal-child health
Intervention effects
Maternal mental health
This study focused on Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) and its effects on trauma symptoms in both parents and children. The researchers examined a group of 199 parent-child pairs who participated in an open treatment study of CPP. They found that both parents and children showed significant decreases in posttraumatic stress symptomatology (PTSS) during treatment and, further, that improvements in parent mental health symptoms were related to improvements in child mental health symptoms. The study also explored various factors that influenced the improvement, such as parental lifetime stressors, treatment duration, child's gender, and clinician expertise.
Pages
- « first
- ‹ previous
- 1
- 2
- 3