Importance of multilevel perinatal research for advancing child development and family health equity

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

There has been increasing awareness of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in biopsychosocial processes during the perinatal period (Harris et al., 2021). Given the implications of these disparities for maternal, child, and family health, advancements in perinatal research are needed to capture the complexity of this lifespan transition. In response to this critical empirical need, this symposium presents innovative, multi-method, longitudinal studies of perinatal biopsychosocial processes, which may have implications for intervention and policy efforts to increase health equity.
Paper 1 examines longitudinal effects of family socioeconomic status (SES) and census-level neighborhood deprivation on diurnal salivary cortisol among a large, diverse cohort of pregnant people. High levels of neighborhood deprivation are associated with more blunted cortisol patterns across gestation, independent of the significant effects of family SES. Paper 2 utilizes ambulatory assessment to investigate repeated associations between sleep health and emotion dysregulation during early postpartum. Poor sleep quality predicts high emotion dysregulation only among birthing parents who experienced high financial stress during pregnancy, as measured via semi-structured interview. Finally, paper 3 uses text analysis to longitudinally examine associations between relationship satisfaction and couples’ communication of infant care. Results indicate that more egalitarian communication during pregnancy about infant care division predicts higher postnatal relationship satisfaction among fathers. Taken together, these papers illustrate innovative ways to conceptualize and measure biopsychosocial processes during the perinatal period. The symposium discussion will emphasize the importance of multilevel perinatal research for informing intervention and policy efforts that promote positive child development and family health equity.

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Chair

• Parisa R. Kaliush, University of Utah

Discussant

• Danielle Roubinov, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Individual Presentations

• Characterizing pregnancy cortisol in a diverse cohort: A role for neighborhood and family socioeconomic position - Presenting Author: Laura R Stroud, Brown Medical School and The Miriam Hospital; Brie M Reid, Brown University

• Perinatal sleep health, stress, and emotion dysregulation: A repeated measures study - Presenting Author: Parisa R. Kaliush, University of Utah; Liz Conradt, Duke University; Paula G. Williams, University of Utah; Sheila E Crowell, University of Utah

• Infant care division while transitioning to parenthood and fathers' relationship satisfaction: A longitudinal mixed-methods study - Presenting Author: Elizabeth C Aviv, University of Southern California; Matthew Pilgrim, University of Southern California; Genesis D. Flores, University of Southern California; Darby E. Saxbe, University of Southern California