DEVELOPMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL PROCESSES IN MENTAL HEALTH

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A NIMH Behavioral Sciences Research Center is proposed to facilitate longitudinal research on the determinants of mental health across the life span. The Center will carry out three multilevel research projects on adaptive self-regulation during early childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. The Center Core will integrate 40 University of Michigan longitudinal studies of human behavior. Research Facilitation Groups will be established to improve developmental, ecological, and methodological assessment of mental health in these Center and Center-affiliated projects. There will be developmental research facilitation subgroups for infancy and early childhood, middle childhood and adolescence, and adulthood. There will be contextual subgroups for biological processes (endocrinology and nutrition), interpersonal processes (family functioning, marital, parent-child, sibling, and peer interactions), cultural processes (subcultural factors, gender issues, minority status, and international studies), and economic processes (income level, occupational prestige, and unemployment). The methodological subgroup members will have expertise in an array of statistical techniques for analyzing processes across time. Individual Research Project #1 will examine the relation between biological (endocrinological reactivity) and behavioral (emotional expression) regulation processes in a sample of infants with pediatric developmental problems Individual Research Project #2 will examine the family mediators between economic hardship and adolescent mental health in 5 longitudinal samples from four geographical sites in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Maryland and one national sample. Individual Research Project #3 will compare the influences of past, assessed from birth through adolescence, and current risk and protective factors on mental health in adulthood. Research Apprenticeships will be associated with each research project and the center core. Research findings will be linked to issues relevant to prevention, treatment and mental health services through the identification of risk factors and risk groups that would be important targets for intervention efforts.