Jyoti Mudgal, Dr, Unidad de Investigación Epidemiologica y en Servicios de Salud, Instituto Mexicana Seguro Social, Hospital Regional C/Medicina Familiar NO. 1, Ave. Plan de Ayala, Colonia Chapultepec, Cuernavaca, Mexico, 0155-777-315-5000 ext 2000, jmudgal@yahoo.com

Research regarding developmental psychopathology among children tends to be focused on the family, especially parents and their parenting behaviors. Rarely has this research considered the larger social context within which families are located and the impact of this context on the social and psychological well-being of parents and their children. This paper examines the interconnections between maternal social status and teenage children’s mental health. Specifically, I examine the mediating effects of stressors and psychosocial resources in intergenerational proliferation of emotional well-being. Longitudinal data from a community-based survey of 877 adolescents and their parents in Los Angeles County are analyzed using step-wise multiple linear regression models to study these effects. I find that increasing depression over time both among mothers and adolescents is associated with persistently high and increasing financial strains and relationship strains. Depression is negatively associated with persistently high and increasing levels of mastery. These findings show that there is intergenerational proliferation of stress and resources and these stressors and resources originate from mothers’ social location within society.

Programs that look at proximal determinants of adolescent distress and target only the clinically depressed adolescents leave unattended the long term structured conditions that generate stress and distress. Attending to such structural conditions is important for long term impact of policies and programs. My research identifies such at-risk group of adolescents whose mothers are exposed to severe financial and role strains. It also identifies the leverage points that can be modified through intervention that break the proliferation of stress from mothers to adolescents.

Learning Objectives:

• At the conclusion of this session, the participant in this session will be able to identify at-risk group of mothers and adolescents for depression. They will also be able to identify the pathways through which intergenerational transmission of emotional well-being occurs and therefore recognize the leverage points for intervention that can break this chain of events that lead to this proliferation. Hence, practitioners will be able to develop effective interventions and policy makers, effective policy with realistic goals.

Keywords: Adult and Child Mental Health, Social Inequalities

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.