Post-adoption perinatal grief and parenting future children in the home: The moderating roles of social support and parental substance use.

Objective: The aim of this study was twofold: (a) to examine the impact of birth mother's post-adoption perinatal grief - stemming from ambiguous loss - on their perceptions of their parenting years later and the relationship quality they have with the children who they raise; and (b) to evaluate the potential contribution that social support and substance use severity play in moderating the impact of post-adoption perinatal grief.

Design: We applied an adoption design that consisted of a sample of birth mothers ( = 53) who placed one child for adoption at birth and parented another child in their home following the voluntary adoption placement of the adoptee. At 3-6 months postpartum of the adopted child, we measured birth mother's post-adoption perinatal grief, substance use severity, and level of social support received by their friends, family, and community.

A Moderated Mediation Model to Predict Adolescent Resistance to Peer Influence: Evidence From an Adoption Study.

Introduction: Adolescents are particularly susceptible to peer influence and at higher risk of engaging in problematic behaviors through peer interactions, but also vary in the extent to which they are influenced by their peers. Resistance to peer influence, the tendency to refuse undesired peer pressure, is one key factor for this variation. However, how genetic and contextual influences shape the development of RPI remain unclear.

Prenatal Air Pollution Exposure and Autism Spectrum Disorder in the ECHO Consortium.

Background: The relationship between prenatal exposure to low-level air pollution and child autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is unclear.

Objective: To examine associations of prenatal air pollution exposure with autism.

Methods: We analyzed data from 8,035 mother-child pairs from 44 United States cohorts in the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Cohort.

Early-Life Factors and Body Mass Index Trajectories Among Children in the ECHO Cohort.

Importance: Identifying atypical body mass index (BMI) trajectories in children and understanding associated, modifiable early-life factors may help prevent childhood obesity.

Objective: To characterize multiphase BMI trajectories in children and identify associated modifiable early-life factors.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cohort study included longitudinal data obtained from January 1997 to June 2024, from the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) cohort, which included children aged 1 to 9 years with 4 or more weight and height assessments.

Socio-ecological domains and adolescent mental health: An application of the dual-factor model.

Comprehensive assessment of mental health includes wellbeing and psychopathology. Using the dual-factor model of mental health, this study explored associations between socioecological domains and mental health profiles and subsequent moderations by sex, race and ethnicity, and age. Cross-sectional data were from the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Cohort (N = 2826).

Genetic and Environmental Influences on the Development of Irritability from Ages 3 to 5 Years.

Objective: Irritability is genetically influenced and is associated with internalizing and externalizing psychopathology. However, little is known about the etiology of the development of irritability in the preschool period. The present study examined this from rank-order stability and developmental trajectories perspectives.

Depressive and anxiety symptoms during adolescence: The protective roles of adolescent and family assets within ECHO's diverse national population.

To understand the factors that preserve mental health amongst a diverse population of adolescents, we examined links between neighborhood-level resources, adolescents' self-reported personal assets (low perceived stress, meaning and purpose, life satisfaction), parent-reported family assets (household income, maternal mental health) and adolescents' self-reported depressive and anxiety symptoms. Participants included a racially and ethnically diverse national sample of 4325 adolescents (10 - 21 years) from the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program. Neighborhood-level resources were not directly associated with depressive or anxiety symptoms.

Child Opportunity Index at birth and asthma with recurrent exacerbations in the US ECHO program.

Background: Environmental exposures and social determinants likely influence specific childhood asthma phenotypes.

Objective: We hypothesized that the Child Opportunity Index (COI) at birth, measuring multiple neighborhood opportunities, influences incidence rates (IRs) for asthma with recurrent exacerbations (ARE).

Methods: We tested for COI associations with ARE IRs in 15,877 children born between 1990 and 2018 in the ECHO (Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes) program.

Adolescent Social Media Use and Mental Health in the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes Study.

Purpose: Research on adolescent social media use focuses on negative mental health outcomes, with less attention on potential positive outcomes. The current study addresses this limitation by investigating associations between adolescent social media use and both psychological well-being and psychopathology.

Methods: Three US-based pediatric cohort sites participating in the National Institutes of Health Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes study contributed cross-sectional survey data.

Understanding the Etiology of Externalizing Problems in Young Children: The Roles of Callous-Unemotional Traits and Irritability.

Objective: Callous-unemotional traits (CU), characterized as a lack of guilt and empathy, and irritability, a tendency to show anger and frustration, are 2 risk factors for externalizing behavioral problems. Externalizing problems, CU, and irritability are all heritable. However, there is a dearth of studies examining the genetic and environmental associations between the 3 domains.

Children's executive functioning and health behaviors across pediatric life stages and ecological contexts.

Executive functioning (EF) has been linked to chronic disease risk in children. Health behaviors are thought to partially explain this association. The current cross-sectional study evaluated specific domains of EF and varied health behaviors in three pediatric life stages.

Demographic Correlates of Autism: How Do Associations Compare Between Diagnosis and a Quantitative Trait Measure?

Prevalence of autism diagnosis has historically differed by demographic factors. Using data from 8224 participants drawn from the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program, we examined relationships between demographic factors and parent-reported autism-related traits as captured by the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS; T score > 65) and compared these to relations with parent-reported clinician diagnosis of ASD, in generalized linear mixed effects regression analyses. Results suggested lower odds of autism diagnosis, but not of SRS T > 65, for non-Hispanic Black children (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 0.

Lability in parent-child warmth and hostility and adolescent externalizing behaviors.

Both longer term developmental changes (increases in hostility, decreases in warmth) and lability (year-to-year fluctuations) in parent-child relationship quality across childhood and adolescence have been linked to adolescent externalizing behaviors. Using a prospective longitudinal study of 561 children who were adopted into nonrelative families at birth (57% male, 56% White, 19% multiracial, 13% Black, 11% Hispanic) where parental warmth and hostility reflect environmental influences or child-evoked reactions, we examined associations between parent-child relationship measures and externalizing behaviors at age 11 and across adolescence (i.e.

Intergenerational transmission of comorbid internalizing and externalizing psychopathology at age 11: Evidence from an adoption design for general transmission of comorbidity rather than homotypic transmission.

Psychopathology is intergenerationally transmitted through both genetic and environmental mechanisms via heterotypic (cross-domain), homotypic (domain-specific), and general (e.g., "p-factor") pathways.

Neighborhood Food Access in Early Life and Trajectories of Child Body Mass Index and Obesity.

Importance: Limited access to healthy foods, resulting from residence in neighborhoods with low food access, is a public health concern. The contribution of this exposure in early life to child obesity remains uncertain.

Objective: To examine associations of neighborhood food access during pregnancy or early childhood with child body mass index (BMI) and obesity risk.

Early risk for child externalising symptoms: Examining genetic, prenatal, temperamental and parental influences.

This study utilized the Early Growth and Development Study (N = 561 adoptive children; 57.2% male, 55.3% White), a study of children adopted at birth, to examine heritable (birth parent psychopathology) and prenatal risk (prenatal maternal distress and smoking during pregnancy), infant negative affectivity, adoptive parent over-reactivity and warmth as independent predictors of childhood externalizing symptoms.

Stronger color evasive racial ideologies predict lower likelihood of open adoption placement with same-sex couples.

Although the adoption rate among same-sex couples has been increasing, limited research has focused on factors influencing decision making related to placing children with such couples, particularly from the standpoint of birth mothers. Additionally, there is a gap in the literature regarding how biases may influence birth mothers' decision to place their child with a same-sex couple. This study sought to examine the association between birth mothers' racial ideologies and their decision to voluntarily place their children with same-sex couples ( = 29) or mother-father couples ( = 354) during the adoption process.

Integrating the family stress model within a longitudinal sibling-adoption study of adolescent externalizing behavior.

Using a sample of linked adopted children, adoptive and birth parents (N = 561), and biological siblings residing in the birth parent home (N = 191), we examined the role of genetics within family stress processes. We tested parental hostility (7 years) as a mediator of the associations between socioeconomic strain and rearing parent psychopathology (4 years) and adolescent externalizing behaviors (11 years) in adoptive and biological parent homes. Next, we examined parent social support (4 years) as a moderator of paths from socioeconomic strain and parent psychopathology to parental hostility.

Evocative effects on the early caregiving environment of genetic factors underlying the development of intellectual and academic ability.

This study examined gene-environment correlation (rGE) in intellectual and academic development in 561 U.S.-based adoptees (57% male; 56% non-Latinx White, 19% multiracial, 13% Black or African American, 11% Latinx) and their birth and adoptive parents between 2003 and 2017.

The effects of illicit drug use during pregnancy and parental hostility on problem behaviors in school-aged children over and above genetic influences.

Previous work has examined the impact of prenatal illicit drug use (PDU) on children's problem behaviors. However, many PDU-related risk factors, including genetic and rearing environmental risks, can also influence offspring's problem behaviors, thus confounding PDU, genetic, and rearing environmental influences. This study aimed to (a) identify effects of PDU on school-aged children's problem behaviors, including both externalizing and internalizing behaviors at Age 7, after controlling genetic and specific rearing environmental (e.

The Detection of Environmental Influences on Academic Achievement Appears to Depend on the Analytic Approach.

One long-standing analytic approach in adoption studies is to examine correlations between features of adoptive homes and outcomes of adopted children (hereafter termed 'measured environment correlations') to illuminate environmental influences on those associations. Although results from such studies have almost uniformly suggested modest environmental influences on adopted children's academic achievement, other work has indicated that adopted children's achievement is routinely higher than that of their reared-apart family members, often substantially so. We sought to understand this discrepancy.

Study Preregistration: Understanding the Etiology of Externalizing Problems in Young Children: The Roles of Callous-Unemotional Traits and Irritability.

Externalizing behavioral problems in young children are associated with later delinquency and crime, which can cause burdens at both personal and socialeconomic levels. The heterogeneity of externalizing problems emphasizes the importance of examining the etiological mechanisms that underlie externalizing problems and related behaviors. The present study focuses on 2 risk factors for externalizing behavioral problems in early childhood: callous-unemotional traits (CU), characterized as a lack of guilt and empathy, and irritability, a tendency to show anger and frustration.