Last updated June 2004
With the completion of the age 30 interviews, SLS staff have shifted their attention from data collection to organizing the new information. The age 30 data has been entered into the database, cleaned, and organized, and is ready for use. Accordingly, SLS staff are busy writing papers and presenting our latest findings.
As always, we are looking forward to catching up with our study members in the near future. We can't wait to hear how their lives have changed since their age 30 interview!
Highlights from Recent Presentations:
1. On January 15-18, 2004, three SLS staff members attended the Society for Social Work and Research conference in New Orleans, LA. SLS staff presented a symposium entitled "Family Matters: Findings from a 25-Year Longitudinal Study of Mental Health from Childhood to Adulthood." The symposium consisted of three papers examining risk and protective factors for mental health problems in our community population at ages 5 to 26.
Dr. Helen Reinherz, SLS Principal Investigator
How
Does the Family Matter? Tracing Risk and Protective Factors from Preschool to Adolescence
The family is the most powerful influence in the lives of children and adolescents. In this presentation, Dr. Reinherz's major goal was to identify childhood and adolescent protective family factors applicable to prevention and intervention programs.
Dr. Abbie Frost, SLS Co-Investigator
Early Risk
Factors for Alcohol Dependence in Late Adolescence
Late adolescence is a critical period for occurrence and onset of alcohol problems. Dr. Frost's research provides evidence that males and females may experience different risk factors for alcohol dependence in adolescence.
Dr. Jennifer Tanner, SLS Senior Research
Associate
Family Influences on Emerging Adult Adjustment
Emerging adulthood is a stage of life characterized by many tasks and challenges, such as the transitions to marriage and parenthood. Dr. Tanner explored the relationship between family cohesion and family risk exposure during this critical developmental period.
2. SLS staff also attended the Society for Research on Adolescence conference in Baltimore, MD, on March 11-14, 2004. The research symposium entitled "Psychopathology and Problem Behaviors Across the Transition to Adulthood," addressed a variety of mental health problems during the transition to adulthood.
Dr. Jennifer Tanner, SLS Senior Research Associate
Lingering Effects: The
Impact of Psychopathology on Young Adult Functioning
The findings from this research imply that the impact of child and adolescent disorder lingers well into young adulthood, highlighting the continuity of individual adjustment from adolescence into young adulthood. This work emphasizes the importance of detecting the earliest symptoms of disorder to avert impaired adjustment not only during childhood and adolescence, but into young adulthood when impaired adjustment begins to have implications for spouses, partners, and children.
Angela Paradis, SLS Research Associate
The Course of Aggressive Behavior From
Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood: Results From a Community Sample
Adolescents from our community sample who met clinical levels of aggressive behavior constituted a small, but important group. These adolescents experienced impairments across several areas of functioning in emerging adulthood and were vulnerable for a host of serious problems.
Dr. Helen Reinherz, SLS Principal Investigator
Early Risk for Continuity of
Substance Disorders From Adolescence to Adulthood
Both familial and behavioral risk factors were linked to continuity of substance disorder from ages 18 to 26. Although a sizable percentage of respondents did not continue to have substance disorders, respondents with substance abuse disorders in late adolescence were almost three times more likely to engage in antisocial behaviors in young adulthood.
Dr. Paul Rohde, Senior Scientist at the Oregon Research Institute
Comorbidity Between Major Depressive Disorder and Substance Use Disorder: Phenomenology, Course, and
Associations With Familial Psychopathology
Major depressive disorder and substance use disorder frequently co-occur, yet there is no clear temporal precedence of disorder. Those with comorbid SUD and MDD fared worse than those with "pure" disorder in terms of global functioning, education, stress levels, and treatment utilization.
3. Dr. Jennifer Tanner, SLS Senior Research Associate, was invited to speak at the Brown-Bag Lunch Series held at the Murray Research Center, Harvard University. The overarching theme of the 2004 series is "Studying Lives Over Time." Dr. Tanner's talk focused on mental health during the transition to adulthood and included data from the Age 30 interviews.
4. On April 21, 2004, Dr. Helen Reinherz, SLS Principal Investigator, presented research at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her presentation, Adolescent Suicidal Ideation: Normative Angst or Psychopathology Predictor at Age 30?, focused on the importance of preventive intervention during adolescence. Dr. Reinherz stressed that suicidal ideation has long-term associations with negative adult outcomes and is not "normative adolescent angst."
