Military Parents’ Stress Exposure Associated with Mental and Behavioral Health Outcomes among Their Young Children

项目摘要/摘要： 尽管许多军人家庭成功地应对了战时服兵役，但越来越多的经验证据表明 这表明，相当大一部分与军方有关联的儿童可能会经历负面后果，包括 精神健康问题、药物使用和自杀。先前的研究已经证明了 父母的部署和这些结果之间的关系，但仅有军事特有的应激源并不足以 解释近200万与军队有联系的年轻人适应不良的风险。这种知识鸿沟 建议有必要研究更广泛的心理社会应激源，以更好地解释不良心理 以及这一脆弱亚群的行为健康结果。本研究采用了一个新颖的家庭-- 水平应激过程透镜考虑早期、慢性和近期非军事的各种机制 应激源可能与军事应激源相结合，影响军人父母的心理健康等 全面解释与军队有关联的年轻人的不良心理和行为健康后果的风险 孩子们。我们使用国防部(DoD)千禧年队列家庭研究的次要数据 这是一项对9872对已婚军人夫妇的纵向调查。MCFS项目和相关档案国防部 数据集提供了一个独特的机会来探索家庭层面的压力过程，包括压力扩散、压力 敏感化，心理社会资源的沉默，以及压力的横向扩散。并元基线数据包括 军人(SM)和配偶的早期、长期和近期非军事应激源的测量(例如， 童年虐待，与种族/少数民族地位有关的压力，以及最近的创伤生活事件)，军事 应激源(例如，部署)、心理社会资源(如应对)和心理健康。在3年内收集的数据 随访包括父母报告的和儿童心理和行为健康的客观测量。使用结构 方程模型，我们将探讨非军事和军事应激源对心理健康的二元效应 每一位父母和他们的伴侣。此外，我们将探索每一位父母的早期压力暴露和 心理社会资源影响近期压力源与自身压力源和伴侣心理的关系 健康。最后，我们将探讨父母的压力暴露与儿童贫困风险之间的关系 心理和行为健康结果，考虑到父母的心理健康作为中介的作用，以及 对不同年龄和性别儿童的不同影响。调查结果将使人们更好地理解 家庭系统成员之间的压力过程的横向扩散。此外，与较新的 促进健康的方法，了解这些关系将有助于有针对性的预防和 为减少年轻军人儿童暴露于有毒应激的风险而进行的干预努力，支持 健康的家庭运作，改善这些青年及其家庭的发展成果。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT: Although many military families cope successfully with wartime military service, mounting empirical evidence suggests that a sizeable subset of military-connected children may experience negative consequences, including mental health problems, substance use, and suicidality. Prior research has demonstrated an association between parental deployment and these outcomes, but military-specific stressors alone do not adequately explain the risk for poor adjustment among nearly 2 million military-connected youth. This knowledge gap suggests the need to examine a broader spectrum of psychosocial stressors to better explain adverse mental and behavioral health outcomes in this vulnerable sub-population. The present study employs a novel, family- level stress process lens to consider various mechanisms through which early, chronic, and recent non-military stressors may combine with military stressors to influence the mental health of military parents and more completely explain risk for adverse mental and behavioral health outcomes among young military-connected children. We use secondary data from the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Millennium Cohort Family Study (MCFS), a longitudinal survey of 9,872 married military couples. The MCFS project and linked archival DoD datasets offer a unique opportunity to explore family-level stress processes, including stress proliferation, stress sensitization, muting of psychosocial resources, and lateral proliferation of stress. Dyadic baseline data includes measures of service member’s (SM) and spouses’ early, chronic, and recent non-military stressors (e.g., maltreatment in childhood, stress related to racial/ethnic minority status, and recent traumatic life events), military stressors (e.g., deployment), psychosocial resources like coping, and mental health. Data collected at 3-year follow-up include parent-reported and objective measures of child mental and behavioral health. Using structural equation modeling, we will explore the dyadic effects of non-military and military stressors on the mental health of each parent and their partner. Further, we will explore whether each parents’ early stress exposure and psychosocial resources affect the relationship between recent stressors and their own and their partner’s mental health. Finally, we will explore the relationship between parents’ stress exposure and children’s risk for poor mental and behavioral health outcomes, considering the role of parents’ mental health as a mediator, as well as differential effects for children of different ages and genders. Findings will lead to increased understanding of the lateral proliferation of stress processes among members of a family system. Further, consistent with newer approaches to health promotion, understanding these relationships will inform targeted prevention and intervention efforts to reduce risk associated with exposure to toxic stress in young military children, support healthy family functioning, and improve developmental outcomes for these youth and their families.