Intergenerational Transmission of Mental Health Risk: Setting the Next Generation Research Agenda

Session Type: Conversation Roundtable

Abstract

Mental health disorders co-occur within families and despite advances in our field’s knowledge base, intergenerational transmission of mental disorders remains persistently high. Being a child raised by a parent with mental health issues is a relatively common experience, is considered adverse and a ‘risk factor’, but for which children experience a range of developmental outcomes that can be observed throughout their lifespan. The purpose of our roundtable is to bring together expert panelists (Drs. Sierra Carter, Sheila Crowell, Debrielle Jacques, and Leslie Roos) and our audience to discuss key questions we must ask and answer in order to advance the science and impact of this field. In many ways, our roundtable will hold a meta-philosophical view (the what and the how of our science) of child development in the context of parent mental disorders. We will ask ourselves questions about what paradigms, epistemologies, developmental models, and/or scholars are missing from our work? Our roundtable will collectively generate ideas to improve our research such that in this next generation, we optimize the likelihood of seeing reductions in the risk of transmission of mental health within families at the population level. Chair and moderator, Dr. Maureen Zalewski will call on panelists as well as the audience to share perspectives and debate points of view. Following the SRCD conference, our goal is to produce a team science paper setting a next generation research agenda on intergenerational mental health, for which interested attendees will be invited to co-author.

Sub Unit

• Developmental Psychopathology

Moderator

• Maureen Zalewski, University of Oregon

Panelists

• Debrielle Teresa Jacques, University of Washington

• Sierra E Carter, Georgia State University

• Leslie E. Roos, University of Manitoba

• Sheila E Crowell, University of Utah