Family social environment in childhood and self-rated health in young adulthood

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Family social support, as a form of social capital, contributes to social health disparities at different age of life. In a life-course epidemiological perspective, the aims of our study were to examine the association between self-reported family social environment during childhood and self-reported health in young adulthood and to assess the role of family functioning during childhood as a potential mediating factor in explaining the association between family breakup in childhood and self-reported health in young adulthood.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We analyzed data from the first wave of the Health, Inequalities and Social Ruptures Survey (SIRS), a longitudinal health and socio-epidemiological survey of a random sample of 3000 households initiated in the Paris metropolitan area in 2005. Sample-weighted logistic regression analyses were performed to determine the association between the quality of family social environment in childhood and self-rated health (overall health, physical health and psychological well-being) in young adults (n = 1006). We used structural equation model to explore the mediating role of the quality of family functioning in childhood in the association between family breakup in childhood and self-rated health in young adulthood.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The multivariate results support an association between a negative family social environment in childhood and poor self-perceived health in adulthood. The association found between parental separation or divorce in childhood and poor self-perceived health in adulthood was mediated by parent-child relationships and by having witnessed interparental violence during childhood.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results argue for interventions that enhance family cohesion, particularly after family disruptions during childhood, to promote health in young adulthood.</p

Reconciling Mixed Findings on Children’s Adjustment Following High-Conflict Divorce

Despite important advances, empirical evidence regarding the impact of divorce on children is mixed, ranging widely in its conclusions regarding the intensity, chronicity, and harmfulness of parental divorce on their post-divorce adjustment. To explain the broad range of findings, we suggest that successful and dysfunctional adjustment following parental divorce may not be mutually exclusive. Rather, they may be partly independent, and children may report divorce-specific traumatic feelings as well as a relatively high post-divorce adjustment. We examined these suggestions in a sample of 142 six-to-18-year-old Dutch children whose parents were involved in high-conflict divorces. Children completed self-reported measures of post-divorce traumatic impact and adjustment. Consistent with our suggestion, children showed, on average, both high levels of trauma and high levels of post-divorce adjustment. Nevertheless, illustrating domain spill-over, at the individual level, children who experienced more traumatic impact of the divorce also reported lower levels of post-divorce adjustment. These results suggest that high-conflict divorce represents a risk for traumatic impact, and, at the same time, children demonstrate resilience. Future research examining which children are more susceptible to trauma and/or resilience over time would be promising