Family Stress and Youth Development Study
Funded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
Grant # R01-HD046795
El-Sheikh, M. (PI)
6/1/2004 – 3/31/2009, no-cost extension to 3/31/2010
8/1/2012 – 5/31/2017, no-cost extension to 5/31/2018
2/1/2019 – 12/31/2023, no-cost extension to 12/31/2024
The Study
This longitudinal study followed children and their families in small towns and rural communities in the Southeastern United States from middle childhood (age 8) into emerging adulthood (age 24), with eight waves of data collected from 2005 to 2024. Families were from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds; about one third of youth were Black/African American and two thirds White/European American. We examined bioregulatory (autonomic nervous system [ANS], sleep) and socio-ecological (socioeconomic status, peer affiliations) variables that mediate or moderate associations between family stress and trajectories of risky behavior, depressed mood and cognitive functioning.
Key Findings
We identified bioregulatory moderators of family stress (e.g., interparental conflict, harsh parenting) and other social risk factors (e.g., deviant peers, peer victimization). Blunted ANS reactivity increased susceptibility to harsh and permissive social contexts, and long and high-quality sleep protected against cognitive difficulties and behavioral problems in the context of social risk. Socio-ecological conditions (e.g., socioeconomic adversity, community violence, discrimination) and ANS activity also contributed to adolescents' sleep duration and quality. Following youth into emerging adulthood, we found that exposure to interparental conflict in adolescence predicted sleep problems in emerging adulthood, especially among youth whose exposure to interparental conflict had increased in childhood, consistent with stress sensitization. Sleep duration, timing and night-to-night variability followed nonlinear trajectories from ages 15 to 24.
