"Mothers Speaking: A Study on the Experience of Mothers with Mother-Child Education Program (MOCEP) " - A. Koçak; S. Bekman (University Faculty of Education, 2009)

Mothers speaking: A study on the experience of mothers with mother-child education program (MOCEP) - Koçak, A.; S. Bekman (European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 2007)
This study aimed to investigate the experiences of mothers participating in MOCEP in Istanbul, through a qualitative research methodology. Overall effectiveness of the programme, its implementation and how the mothers benefited were the main concerns. The study was carried out with 20 mothers. Individual and focus interviews, participant observation and diary keeping were used. The results revealed that the programme created some changes in mother-child relationship, in mothers, children and fathers. The effects of the programme were categorised as direct and side effects, and the direction of the effect was indicated as positive or negative. The effects of the programme on mothers were examined in two aspects: the change in the mother's behaviour and perceptions. This change in the mother was found to have three addressees: the children, the husbands and the mother herself. In addition, a causal network was used to display the relationship between the programme, the mother, the child and the father.

Evaluation report of the Father-Support Program - A. Koçak (Mother-Child Education Foundation Publications, 2004)

Trauma-Informed practices for K12 schools, professional develop simulation - Kognito; UNICEF, USA (Kognito, 2017)
An interactive role-play simulation for educators to build skills, confidence, and empathy to better support students whose behavior might be related to sources of trauma or distress. It prepares users to spot warning signs of trauma, lead real-life conversations with students, improve their experience in class, and explore making a referral to a mental health professional.
Keywords: adverse childhood experiences; childhood trauma

The psychology of moral development: the nature and validity of moral stages - Kohlberg, L. (Harper & Row, 1984)

TET enzymes, TDG and the dynamics of DNA demethylation. - Kohli, Rahul M; Zhang, Yi (Nature, 2013)
DNA methylation has a profound impact on genome stability, transcription and development. Although enzymes that catalyse DNA methylation have been well characterized, those that are involved in methyl group removal have remained elusive, until recently. The transformative discovery that ten-eleven translocation (TET) family enzymes can oxidize 5-methylcytosine has greatly advanced our understanding of DNA demethylation. 5-Hydroxymethylcytosine is a key nexus in demethylation that can either be passively depleted through DNA replication or actively reverted to cytosine through iterative oxidation and thymine DNA glycosylase (TDG)-mediated base excision repair. Methylation, oxidation and repair now offer a model for a complete cycle of dynamic cytosine modification, with mounting evidence for its significance in the biological processes known to involve active demethylation.
Keywords: 5-Methylcytosine; Animals; Blastocyst; Cellular Reprogramming; Cytosine; DNA Methylation; DNA Repair; DNA Replication; Humans; Neoplasms; Oxidation-Reduction; Thymine DNA Glycosylase

Global Mental Health: Five Areas for Value-Driven Training Innovation - Kohrt, B. A.; Marienfeld, C. B.; Panter-Brick, C.; Tsai, A. C.; Wainberg, M. L. (Acad Psychiatry, 2016)
OBJECTIVE: In the field of global mental health, there is a need for identifying core values and competencies to guide training programs in professional practice as well as in academia. This paper presents the results of interdisciplinary discussions fostered during an annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture to develop recommendations for value-driven innovation in global mental health training. METHODS: Participants (n = 48), who registered for a dedicated workshop on global mental health training advertised in conference proceedings, included both established faculty and current students engaged in learning, practice, and research. They proffered recommendations in five areas of training curriculum: values, competencies, training experiences, resources, and evaluation. RESULTS: Priority values included humility, ethical awareness of power differentials, collaborative action, and "deep accountability" when working in low-resource settings in low- and middle-income countries and high-income countries. Competencies included flexibility and tolerating ambiguity when working across diverse settings, the ability to systematically evaluate personal biases, historical and linguistic proficiency, and evaluation skills across a range of stakeholders. Training experiences included didactics, language training, self-awareness, and supervision in immersive activities related to professional or academic work. Resources included connections with diverse faculty such as social scientists and mentors in addition to medical practitioners, institutional commitment through protected time and funding, and sustainable collaborations with partners in low resource settings. Finally, evaluation skills built upon community-based participatory methods, 360-degree feedback from partners in low-resource settings, and observed structured clinical evaluations (OSCEs) with people of different cultural backgrounds. CONCLUSIONS: Global mental health training, as envisioned in this workshop, exemplifies an ethos of working through power differentials across clinical, professional, and social contexts in order to form longstanding collaborations. If incorporated into the ACGME/ABPN Psychiatry Milestone Project, such recommendations will improve training gained through international experiences as well as the everyday training of mental health professionals, global health practitioners, and social scientists.
Kohrt, Brandon A Marienfeld, Carla B Panter-Brick, Catherine Tsai, Alexander C Wainberg, Milton L eng K01 MH104310/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ 2016/03/18 06:00 Acad Psychiatry. 2016 Aug;40(4):650-8. doi: 10.1007/s40596-016-0504-4. Epub 2016 Mar 16.
Keywords: *Global Health; *Mental Health; Clinical Competence; Community-Based Participatory Research; Cross-cultural psychiatry; Curriculum; Curriculum development; Ethnopsychology/education; Faculty, Medical; Global mental health; Health Resources; Humans; Medical education; Mentors; Psychiatry/*education; Social Responsibility; Social Values; Teaching; Training innovation

Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution - Kriesberg, L.; Dayton, B.W. (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011)

World report on violence and health - E. G. Krug; L. L. Dahlberg; J. A. Mercy (World Health Orgnization, 2002)

Psychology, Health & Medicine: Know violence in childhood global learning initiative - Shiva Kuman, A. K.; Sherr, L.; Stern. V.; Subrahmanian, R. (2017)
Keywords: Bullying; Child maltreatment; Parenting; school violence; violence against children; violence prevention

Genome-wide epigenetic regulation by early-life trauma. - Labonté, Benoit; Suderman, Matt; Maussion, Gilles; Navaro, Luis; Yerko, Volodymyr; Mahar, Ian; Bureau, Alexandre; Mechawar, Naguib; Szyf, Moshe; Meaney, Michael J; Turecki, Gustavo (Arch Gen Psychiatry, 2012)
CONTEXT: Our genome adapts to environmental influences, in part through epigenetic mechanisms, including DNA methylation. Variations in the quality of the early environment are associated with alterations in DNA methylation in rodents, and recent data suggest similar processes in humans in response to early-life adversity. OBJECTIVE: To determine genome-wide DNA methylation alterations induced by early-life trauma. DESIGN: Genome-wide study of promoter methylation in individuals with severe abuse during childhood. PATIENTS, SETTING, AND MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Promoter DNA methylation levels were profiled using methylated DNA immunoprecipitation followed by microarray hybridization in hippocampal tissue from 41 French-Canadian men (25 with a history of severe childhood abuse and 16 control subjects). Methylation profiles were compared with corresponding genome-wide gene expression profiles obtained by messenger RNA microarrays. Methylation differences between groups were validated on neuronal and nonneuronal DNA fractions isolated by fluorescence-assisted cell sorting. Functional consequences of site-specific promoter methylation were assessed by luciferase assays. RESULTS: We identified 362 differentially methylated promoters in individuals with a history of abuse compared with controls. Among these promoters, 248 showed hypermethylation and 114 demonstrated hypomethylation. Validation and site-specific quantification of DNA methylation in the 5 most hypermethylated gene promoters indicated that methylation differences occurred mainly in the neuronal cellular fraction. Genes involved in cellular/neuronal plasticity were among the most significantly differentially methylated, and, among these, Alsin (ALS2) was the most significant finding. Methylated ALS2 constructs mimicking the methylation state in samples from abused suicide completers showed decreased promoter transcriptional activity associated with decreased hippocampal expression of ALS2 variants. CONCLUSION: Childhood adversity is associated with epigenetic alterations in the promoters of several genes in hippocampal neurons.
Keywords: Adult; Child; Child Abuse; DNA Methylation; Epigenesis, Genetic; Female; Genome; Hippocampus; Humans; Life Change Events; Male; Neurons; Promoter Regions, Genetic

Early childhood development-global action is overdue - Lake, A. (Lancet, 2011)
Lake, Anthony eng Comment England 2011/09/29 06:00 Lancet. 2011 Oct 8;378(9799):1277-8. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(11)61450-5. Epub 2011 Sep 22.
Keywords: *Child Development; Humans

A Pilot Intervention to Promote Positive Parenting in Refugees from Syria in Lebanon and Jordan - Lakkis, Najla A.; Osman, Mona H.; Aoude, Lara C.; Maalouf, Cosette J.; Issa, Hanane G.; Issa, Ghassan M. (Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2020)

Father-child relationships - Lamb, M.E.,; Lewis, C.; Cabrera, N.J.; Tamis-LeMonda, C.S. (Handbook of father involvement: multidisciplinary perspectives(link is external), 2013)
Keywords: childcare; family policy; Parenting; Parenting and Families

The Role of the Father in Child Development - Lamb, M.E. (Wiley, 2004)

Integrating Early Childhood Development and Violence Prevention - Landers, C. (Colombia University, 2014)

Horizontal Inequalities and Post-Conflict Development - Langer, A.; Stewart, F.; Venugopal, R. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)

A health equity critique of social marketing: where interventions have impact but insufficient reach. - Langford, Rebecca; Panter-Brick, Catherine (Soc Sci Med, 2013)
Health interventions increasingly rely on formative qualitative research and social marketing techniques to effect behavioural change. Few studies, however, incorporate qualitative research into the process of program evaluation to understand both impact and reach: namely, to what extent behaviour change interventions work, for whom, in what contexts, and why. We reflect on the success of a community-based hygiene intervention conducted in the slums of Kathmandu, Nepal, evaluating both maternal behaviour and infant health. We recruited all available mother-infant pairs (n = 88), and allocated them to control and intervention groups. Formative qualitative research on hand-washing practices included structured observations of 75 mothers, 3 focus groups, and 26 in-depth interviews. Our intervention was led by Community Motivators, intensively promoting hand-washing-with-soap at key junctures of food and faeces contamination. The 6-month evaluation period included hand-washing and morbidity rates, participant observation, systematic records of fortnightly community meetings, and follow-up interviews with 12 mothers. While quantitative measures demonstrated improvement in hand-washing rates and a 40% reduction in child diarrhoea, the qualitative data highlighted important equity issues in reaching the ultra-poor. We argue that a social marketing approach is inherently limited: focussing on individual agency, rather than structural conditions constraining behaviour, can unwittingly exacerbate health inequity. This contributes to a prevention paradox whereby those with the greatest need of a health intervention are least likely to benefit, finding hand-washing in the slums to be irrelevant or futile. Thus social marketing is best deployed within a range of interventions that address the structural as well as the behavioural and cognitive drivers of behaviour change. We conclude that critiques of social marketing have not paid sufficient attention to issues of health equity, and demonstrate how this can be addressed with qualitative data, embedded in both the formative and evaluative phases of a health intervention.
Keywords: Diarrhea, Infantile; Female; Focus Groups; Follow-Up Studies; Hand Disinfection; Health Promotion; Health Status Disparities; Humans; Infant; Infant Welfare; Mothers; Nepal; Poverty Areas; Program Evaluation; Qualitative Research; Soaps; Social Marketing; Socioeconomic Factors

Evaluation Report of the Better Parenting Project: National multisectoral collaboration on behalf of young children - J. E. Lansford; M. H. Bornstein (UNICEF, 2007)

Childrearing discipline and violence in developing countries. - Lansford, J. E.; Deater-Deckard, K. (Child Dev, 2012)
The present study examined the prevalence and country-level correlates of 11 responses to children's behavior, including nonviolent discipline, psychological aggression, and physical violence, as well as endorsement of the use of physical punishment, in 24 countries using data from 30,470 families with 2- to 4-year-old children that participated in UNICEF's Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. The prevalence of each response varied widely across countries, as did the amount of variance accounted for by country in relation to each response. Country-level indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment, and economic well-being were related to several responses to children's behavior. Country-level factors are widely related to parents' methods of teaching children good behavior and responding to misbehavior.
Keywords: Aggression; Child Behavior Disorders; Child Rearing; Child, Preschool; Cross-Cultural Comparison; Developing Countries; Economic Development; Educational Status; Female; Humans; Life Expectancy; Male; Punishment; Questionnaires; Socialization; Socioeconomic Factors; Violence

Oxytocin response to youth-mother interactions in clinically anxious youth is associated with separation anxiety and dyadic behavior. - Lebowitz, E. R.; Silverman, W. K.; Martino, A. M.; Zagoory-Sharon, O.; Feldman, R.; Leckman, J. F. (Depress Anxiety, 2017)
BACKGROUND: Anxiety disorders are common in youth and cause significant distress and impairment to the individual and family. Oxytocin (OT), a nine amino acid peptide, is implicated in anxiety regulation and modulation of close interpersonal and attachment behavior. Anxiety disorders have been linked to low levels of salivary OT in youth. Research has also linked oxytocinergic functioning to social support, warm contact, and bonding, and indicated that contact with attachment figures stimulates OT response. We examined OT response to a brief, positive youth-mother interaction in clinically anxious youth. We investigated whether quality of the youth-mother interaction as well as the presence of particular anxiety disorders, are associated with youth OT response. METHOD: Salivary OT from 41 youth with primary DSM-5 anxiety disorders was assayed before and after a 7-min youth-mother interaction that was later systematically coded by two reliable coders. Youth and mothers also completed rating scales of youth anxiety symptoms. RESULTS: Affective touch, maternal sensitivity, maternal intrusiveness, youth engagement, and youth initiative all contributed significantly to predicting youth OT response. Repeated measures analyses showed that when affective touch was high youth had greater OT response. OT response was positively associated with the presence of separation anxiety disorder (SAD) and with child ratings of separation anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: The findings highlight the importance of maternal and dyadic behavior patterns to oxytocinergic response in clinically anxious youth, shed light on the association between OT and SAD, and point to possible intervention strategies.
Keywords: Adolescent; Adolescent Behavior; Adult; Anxiety Disorders; Anxiety, Separation; Child; Child Behavior; Female; Humans; Male; Maternal Behavior; Middle Aged; Mother-Child Relations; Object Attachment; Oxytocin; Saliva

Salivary oxytocin in clinically anxious youth: Associations with separation anxiety and family accommodation. - Lebowitz, E. R.; Leckman, J. F.; Feldman, R.; Zagoory-Sharon, O.; McDonald, N.; Silverman, W. K. (Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2016)
Clinical anxiety disorders in youth are common and associated with interpersonal behaviors including reliance on parents for family accommodation, or changes that parents make to their own behaviors to help the youth avoid anxiety related distress. The neuropeptide oxytocin is associated with the regulation of anxiety and of close interpersonal behavior leading to the hypothesis that oxytocinergic functioning plays a role in youth anxiety and its disorders, and the resulting family accommodation. To test this hypothesis salivary OT from 50 youth with primary DSM-5 anxiety disorders was assayed. A multi-source/multi-method anxiety assessment including semistructured interviews with youth and mothers, rating scales, and behavioral observations was used to assess anxiety disorders and symptoms, and family accommodation. Youth with separation anxiety disorder had significantly lower salivary OT levels than clinically anxious youth not diagnosed with separation anxiety disorder. Salivary OT levels were significantly negatively correlated with separation anxiety symptoms based on both youth- and mother-ratings. Anxious behavior displayed by youth during interactions with their mothers was associated with lower salivary OT levels in youth. Maternal ratings of family accommodation were negatively associated with salivary OT levels in youth. Results support the role of the oxytocinergic system in youth anxiety and its disorders and in parental involvement in youth anxiety through family accommodation. OT may be particularly important for diagnoses and symptoms of separation anxiety, which is inherently interpersonal in nature. Findings have potentially important implications for assessment and treatment of anxiety in youth.
Keywords: Adolescent; Anxiety, Separation; Child; Female; Humans; Male; Mother-Child Relations; Mothers; Oxytocin; Pituitary Hormones; Saliva; Self Report; Surveys and Questionnaires

Family accommodation in pediatric anxiety disorders - Lebowitz, E. R.; Woolston, J.; Bar-Haim, Y.; Calvocoressi, L.; Dauser, C.; Warnick, E.; Scahill, L.; Chakir, A. R.; Shechner, T.; Hermes, H.; Vitulano, L. A.; King, R. A.; et al. (Depress Anxiety, 2013)
BACKGROUND: Family accommodation has been studied in obsessive compulsive disorder using the Family Accommodation Scale (FAS) and predicts greater symptom severity, more impairment, and poorer treatment outcomes. However, family accommodation has yet to be systematically studied among families of children with other anxiety disorders. We developed the Family Accommodation Scale-Anxiety (FASA) that includes modified questions from the FAS to study accommodation across childhood anxiety disorders. The objectives of this study were to report on the first study of family accommodation across childhood anxiety disorders and to test the utility of the FASA for assessing the phenomenon. METHODS: Participants were parents (n = 75) of anxious children from two anxiety disorder specialty clinics (n = 50) and a general outpatient clinic (n = 25). Measures included FASA, structured diagnostic interviews, and measures of anxiety and depression. RESULTS: Accommodation was highly prevalent across all anxiety disorders and particularly associated with separation anxiety. Most parents reported participation in symptoms and modification of family routines as well as distress resulting from accommodation and undesirable consequences of not accommodating. The FASA displayed good internal consistency and convergent and divergent validity. Accommodation correlated significantly with anxious but not depressive symptoms, when controlling for the association between anxiety and depression. Factor analysis of the FASA pointed to a two-factor solution; one relating to modifications, the other to participation in symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Accommodation is common across childhood anxiety disorders and associated with severity of anxiety symptoms. The FASA shows promise as a means of assessing family accommodation in childhood anxiety disorders.
Lebowitz, Eli R Woolston, Joseph Bar-Haim, Yair Calvocoressi, Lisa Dauser, Christine Warnick, Erin Scahill, Lawrence Chakir, Adi R Shechner, Tomer Hermes, Holly Vitulano, Lawrence A King, Robert A Leckman, James F eng T32 MH018268/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ Multicenter Study Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't 2012/09/12 06:00 Depress Anxiety. 2013 Jan;30(1):47-54. doi: 10.1002/da.21998. Epub 2012 Sep 10.
Keywords: *Family Health; Adaptation, Psychological; Adolescent; Anxiety Disorders/*psychology; Anxiety, Separation/psychology; Child; Factor Analysis, Statistical; Family/psychology; Female; Humans; Male; Parents/*psychology; Psychometrics/instrumentation; Reproducibility of Results; Severity of Illness Index; Social Behavior; Surveys and Questionnaires

Cross-generational influences on childhood anxiety disorders: pathways and mechanisms. - Lebowitz, E. R.; Leckman, J. F.; Silverman, W. K.; Feldman, R. (J Neural Transm (Vienna), 2016)
Anxiety disorders are common across the lifespan, cause severe distress and impairment, and usually have their onset in childhood. Substantial clinical and epidemiological research has demonstrated the existence of links between anxiety and its disorders in children and parents. Research on the pathways and mechanisms underlying these links has pointed to both behavioral and biological systems. This review synthesizes and summarizes several major aspects of this research. Behavioral systems include vicarious learning, social referencing, and modeling of parental anxiety; overly protective or critical parenting styles; and aspects of parental responses to child anxiety including family accommodation of the child's symptoms. Biological systems include aspects of the prenatal environment affected by maternal anxiety, development and functioning of the oxytocinergic system, and genetic and epigenetic transmission. Implications for the prevention and treatment of child anxiety disorders are discussed, including the potential to enhance child anxiety treatment outcomes through biologically informed parent-based interventions.
Keywords: Anxiety Disorders; Child; Environment; Female; Humans; Male; Oxytocin; Parent-Child Relations; Parenting; Parents

Editorial: a global perspective on child and adolescent mental health - Leckman, J. F.; Leventhal, B. L. (J Child Psychol Psychiatry, 2008)
Leckman, James F Leventhal, Bennett L eng Editorial Introductory England 2008/03/13 09:00 J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2008 Mar;49(3):221-5. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2008.01884.x.
Keywords: *International Cooperation; Adolescent; Adolescent Health Services/organization & administration/*standards; Age of Onset; Child; Child Health Services/organization & administration/*standards; Global Health; Humans; Mental Disorders/epidemiology/*therapy; Mental Health Services/*organization & administration

Editorial: Developmental neuroscience comes of age - Leckman, J. F.; March, J. S. (J Child Psychol Psychiatry, 2011)
Leckman, James F March, John S eng Editorial England 2011/03/18 06:00 J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2011 Apr;52(4):333-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2011.02378.x.
Keywords: Child; Child Psychiatry/*trends; Developmental Disabilities/genetics/psychology; Forecasting; Gene Expression/genetics; Humans; Neurosciences/*trends; Psychology, Child/*trends; Social Environment

Love and peace across generations: Biobehavioral systems and global partnerships - Leckman, James F.; Ponguta, Liliana Angelica; Pavarini, Gabriela; Hein, Sascha D.; McCarthy, Michael F.; Staiti, Haifa; Hanöz-Penney, Suna; Rubinstein, Joanna; Pruett, Kyle D.; Yazgan, M. Yanki; Fallon, N. Shemrah; Hartl, Franz J.; et al. (Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2021)
Keywords: early childhood development; Neurobiology; Parenting; peacebuilding; policy; sustainable development goals

Not just in Philadelphia – But across the globe - Leckman, James F.; Rubinstein, Joanna (Depression and Anxiety, 2019)
Keywords: Child Abuse; child exploitation; child sexual abuse

What Are the Transgenerational Consequences of Maternal Childhood Adversity and Maternal Stress During Pregnancy? - Leckman, J. F. (J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry, 2017)

Pathways to wellbeing and a more peaceful and sustainable world: The transformative power of children and families - Leckman, J.F.; Donaldson, C.; Affolter, F.; Ponguta, L. A. (Japanese Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2019)
Keywords: 2030 Sustainable Development Goals; adverse childhood experiences; early childhood development; neurodevelopmental disorders; neuropsychiatric disorders; nurturing care; peace; toxic stress; violence against children

Towards a more peaceful world: The promise of Early Child Development programmes - Leckman, J. F.; Britto, P. R. (2018)
Keywords: 2030 Sustainable Development Goals; early childhood development; peace; violence prevention

Nurturing resilient children - Leckman, J. F.; Mayes, L. C. (J Child Psychol Psychiatry, 2007)
Leckman, James F Mayes, Linda C eng Editorial England 2007/03/16 09:00 J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2007 Mar-Apr;48(3-4):221-3. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01743.x.
Keywords: *Adaptation, Psychological; *Life Change Events; *Mother-Child Relations; *Personality Development; Animals; Child; Child, Preschool; Community Health Nursing; Early Intervention (Education); Female; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Maternal Behavior/*psychology; Object Attachment; Pregnancy; Social Environment

Steps Toward Peace and Violence Prevention Across Generations: The Potential of Early Child Development in the Context of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. - Leckman, J. F.; Britto, P. R. (New Dir Child Adolesc Dev, 2018)
This special issue of New Directions in Child and Adolescent Development features four review articles from authoritative leaders in the field. These articles highlight how far our field has come over the past five decades, as well as how much further effort is needed to refine, adapt, and implement - in a sustainable fashion - responsive parenting and nurturing care programs of proven value across the globe.

Steps toward peace and violence prevention across generations: The potential of Early Child Development in the context of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals - Leckman, J. F.; Britto, P. R. (New Dir Child Adolesc Dev, 2018)
This special issue of New Directions in Child and Adolescent Development features four review articles from authoritative leaders in the field. These articles highlight how far our field has come over the past five decades, as well as how much further effort is needed to refine, adapt, and implement - in a sustainable fashion - responsive parenting and nurturing care programs of proven value across the globe.
Leckman, James F Britto, Pia Rebello eng Review 2018/03/15 06:00 New Dir Child Adolesc Dev. 2018 Mar;2018(159):5-12. doi: 10.1002/cad.20227.

Maternal behavior and developmental psychopathology. - Leckman, J. F.; Herman, A. E. (Biol Psychiatry, 2002)
This paper reviews recent developments in the phenomenology, neurobiology, and genetics of maternal behavior in animal model systems from an evolutionary perspective on psychopathology. Following a review of the phenomenology and neurobiology of maternal behavior, recent studies addressing the role of genetic factors in the maternal behavior of rodents were identified in a search of literature in peer-reviewed journals. Gene knockout studies were evaluated with regard to mouse strain background, method of behavioral phenotyping, and quantification of the behavioral deficits. Gene knockout data were then analyzed using a cluster analysis technique. At least nine genes have been identified that are necessary for the expression of one or more aspects of maternal behavior. These genes encode for three transcription factors: three enzymes, including dopamine beta hydroxylase and neuronal nitric oxide synthase; two receptors, including the prolactin and the estrogen alpha receptor; and one neuropeptide, oxytocin. Cluster analysis suggested possible relationships between specific genes. Gene knockout technology has provided new insights into the molecular basis of maternal behavior that are congruent with the existing neurobiological literature. Future studies of genetic and environmental influences on maternal behavior have the potential to inform models of disease pathogenesis.
Keywords: Animals; Autistic Disorder; Behavior, Animal; Biological Evolution; Brain; Cluster Analysis; Disease Models, Animal; Dopamine; Drosophila Proteins; Maternal Behavior; Mice; Mice, Knockout; Muscle Proteins; Nitric Oxide Synthase; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; Oxytocin; Phenotype; Prolactin

Pathways to Peace: The Transformative Power of Children and Families - Leckman, J. F.; Panter-Brick, C.; Salah, R. (MIT Press, 2014)
Can more peaceful childhoods promote a culture of peace? Increasing evidence from a broad range of disciplines shows that how we raise our children affects the propensity for conflict and the potential for peace within a given community. In this book, experts from a range of disciplines examine the biological and social underpinnings of child development and the importance of strengthening families to build harmonious and equitable relations across generations. They explore the relevance to the pursuit of peace in the world, highlight directions for future research, and propose novel approaches to translate knowledge into concrete action. The contributors describe findings from research in biology, neuroscience, evolution, genetics, and psychology. They report empirical evidence on children living in violent conditions, resilience in youth, and successful interventions. Their contributions show that the creation of sustainable partnerships with government agencies, community leaders, policy makers, funders, and service providers is a key ingredient for success. Taken together, they suggest possible novel approaches to translate knowledge into concrete action.
Keywords: Child Development; conflict; families; intervention; peace; violent conditions

Nurturing resilient children - Leckman, J. F. (Rev Bras Psiquiatr, 2007)
Leckman, James F eng Editorial Brazil 2007/04/17 09:00 Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 2007 Mar;29(1):5-6.
Keywords: *Adaptation, Psychological; *Life Change Events; *Parent-Child Relations; Child; Child Abuse/psychology; Humans

Peace is a lifelong process: The importance of partnerships - J. Leckman; C. Panter-Brick; R. Salah (Pathways to Peace: The Transformative Power of Children and Families, 2014)
This chapter examines potential pathways to peace based on the biological and social underpinnings of child development. It assesses child development in the context of familial and group relations and examines its potential role in building pathways to peace. Early childhood education and family support programs can result in huge, long-term benefits. Investment in early childhood holds potential for economic and human returns and can boost adult physical health as well as enhance social capital and gender equity. The global peacebuilding agenda aims to recognize the transformative power of early development as a means to promote prosociality, diminish selfish assertiveness, and reduce/prevent violence. A platform to advocate for change needs to be created to strengthen established and emerging networks around children and peace. Published in the Strungmann Forum Reports Series.
Keywords: Child Development; early childhood interventions; family interventions; peacebuilding; Violence

Variations in maternal behavior--oxytocin and reward pathways--peripheral measures matter?! - Leckman, J. F. (Neuropsychopharmacology, 2011)
Keywords: Animals; Brain; Female; Humans; Maternal Behavior; Mother-Child Relations; Neural Pathways; Oxytocin; Pregnancy; Reward

Primary parental preoccupation: circuits, genes, and the crucial role of the environment - Leckman, J. F.; Feldman, R.; Swain, J. E.; Eicher, V.; Thompson, N.; Mayes, L. C. (J Neural Transm (Vienna), 2004)
Parental caregiving includes a set of highly conserved behaviors and mental states that may reflect both an individual's genetic endowment and the early experience of being cared for as a child. This review first examines the mental and behavioral elements of early parental caregiving in humans. Second, we consider what is known about the neurobiological substrates of maternal behaviors in mammalian species including some limited human data. Third, we briefly review the evidence that specific genes encode proteins that are crucial for the development of the neural substrates that underlie specific features of maternal behavior. Fourth, we review the emerging literature on the "programming" role of the intrauterine environment and postnatal caregiving environment in shaping subsequent maternal behavior. We conclude that there are critical developmental windows during which the genetically determined microcircuitry of key limbic-hypothalamic-midbrain structures are susceptible to early environmental influences and that these influences powerfully shape an individual's responsivity to psychosocial stressors and their resiliency or vulnerability to various forms of human psychopathology later in life.
Leckman, J F Feldman, R Swain, J E Eicher, V Thompson, N Mayes, L C eng DA00222/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/ DA06025/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/ HD03008/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/ MH30929/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ MH49351/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ RR06022/RR/NCRR NIH HHS/ Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S. Review Austria 2004/06/19 05:00 J Neural Transm (Vienna). 2004 Jul;111(7):753-71. doi: 10.1007/s00702-003-0067-x. Epub 2004 Feb 4.
Keywords: *Environment; *Parent-Child Relations; Human Development/physiology; Humans; Maternal Behavior/*physiology; Nerve Net/*physiology

Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures - Lederach, J.P. (Syracuse University Press, 1996)

Creating Global Citizens: The Panwapa Project - J. H. Lee; C. F. Cole (Comm. Res. Trends, 2009)
Children today are growing up in an increasingly globally-connected society. While globalization is bringing individuals across the world closer together, offering tremendous opportunities and change, it is also requiring children to develop skills, perspectives, and competencies to understand and navigate this interconnected world. However, there are few resources or international efforts that provide young children the basis for these lifelong perspectives and competencies that will help them to meet the demands of the world of tomorrow, today. To help prepare a new generation of children for life in our increasingly global and interdependent world, Sesame Workshop and the Merrill Lynch Foundation formed a partnership to create Panwapa (a word from the Tshiluba language that means "here on this earth"), an international, multi-media project aimed at fostering the foundation for global citizenship skills and community activism in young children. This article builds on Cole (2008), who first wrote about the Panwapa initiative, and provides a summary of findings from an evaluation of the program. The Panwapa initiative engenders global awareness by nurturing and modeling basic civic values, such as fairness, mutual respect and understanding, justice, appreciation of diversity, accountability for one's actions, and a general desire to work for the common good. Just as learning to count and familiarity with the alphabet provide fundamentals for math and literacy learning, Panwapa offers the building blocks of good global citizenship.

Violence, health, and South-North collaboration: Interdisciplinary research in light of the 2030 Agenda. - Lee, B. X.; Leckman, J. F.; Khoshnood, K. (Soc Sci Med, 2015)
Keywords: Cooperative Behavior; Global Health; Health Status; Humans; Interdisciplinary Studies; Internationality; United Nations; Violence

Responsive caregiving, early learning and play, and children’s safety and security during COVID-19 - LEGO; fhi360 (LEGO Foundation, 2021)
Keywords: child protection; early learning; responsive caregiving

A Review of Family-Based Programs to Prevent Youth Violence Among Latinos - Leidy, M. S.; Guerra, N. G.; Toro, R. I. (Hispanic Journal of Behavioral SciencesHispanic Journal of Behavioral SciencesHispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 2010)
At present, there is limited evidence supporting the effectiveness of family-based intervention programs to prevent violence or related behavior problems with Latino youth and families. Although progress has been made, a number of important issues remain. In this article, the authors review several of the more prominent interventions for Latino youth and families, highlighting how they were adapted to or developed for Latino culture. They begin by discussing cultural sensitivity and how it affects the design, implementation, and adaptation of youth violence prevention programs. Following this, the authors review and discuss programs adapted for Latino families followed by programs developed specifically for Latino families. They highlight four primary components of family-based programs that have been linked most frequently to prevention outcomes: (a) improving parental monitoring,(b) increasing family cohesion, (c) increasing networking across families, and (d) empowering families to access resources more effectively.
548at Times Cited:5 Cited References Count:43
Keywords: american; Behavior; cultural sensitivity; culture; hispanic adolescents; impacts; intervention; latinos; outcomes; parent-child interventions; school; substance use; therapy; youth violence prevention

Adult mental health consequences of peer bullying and maltreatment in childhood: two cohorts in two countries - Lereya, S. T.; Copeland, W. E.; Costello, E. J.; Wolke, D. (Lancet Psychiatry, 2015)
BACKGROUND: The adult mental health consequences of childhood maltreatment are well documented. Maltreatment by peers (ie, bullying) has also been shown to have long-term adverse effects. We aimed to determine whether these effects are just due to being exposed to both maltreatment and bullying or whether bullying has a unique effect. METHODS: We used data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children in the UK (ALSPAC) and the Great Smoky Mountains Study in the USA (GSMS) longitudinal studies. In ALSPAC, maltreatment was assessed as physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, or severe maladaptive parenting (or both) between ages 8 weeks and 8.6 years, as reported by the mother in questionnaires, and being bullied was assessed with child reports at 8, 10, and 13 years using the previously validated Bullying and Friendship Interview Schedule. In GSMS, both maltreatment and bullying were repeatedly assessed with annual parent and child interviews between ages 9 and 16 years. To identify the association between maltreatment, being bullied, and mental health problems, binary logistic regression analyses were run. The primary outcome variable was overall mental health problem (any anxiety, depression, or self-harm or suicidality). FINDINGS: 4026 children from the ALSPAC cohort and 1420 children from the GSMS cohort provided information about bullying victimisation, maltreatment, and overall mental health problems. The ALSPAC study started in 1991 and the GSMS cohort enrolled participants from 1993. Compared with children who were not maltreated or bullied, children who were only maltreated were at increased risk for depression in young adulthood in models adjusted for sex and family hardships according to the GSMS cohort (odds ratio [OR] 4.1, 95% CI 1.5-11.7). According to the ALSPAC cohort, those who were only being maltreated were not at increased risk for any mental health problem compared with children who were not maltreated or bullied. By contrast, those who were both maltreated and bullied were at increased risk for overall mental health problems, anxiety, and depression according to both cohorts and self-harm according to the ALSPAC cohort compared with neutral children. Children who were bullied by peers only were more likely than children who were maltreated only to have mental health problems in both cohorts (ALSPAC OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.1-2.2; p=0.005; GSMS 3.8, 1.8-7.9, p<0.0001), with differences in anxiety (GSMS OR 4.9; 95% CI 2.0-12.0), depression (ALSPAC 1.7, 1.1-2.7), and self-harm (ALSPAC 1.7, 1.1-2.6) between the two cohorts. INTERPRETATION: Being bullied by peers in childhood had generally worse long-term adverse effects on young adults' mental health. These effects were not explained by poly-victimisation. The findings have important implications for public health planning and service development for dealing with peer bullying. FUNDING: Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, NARSAD (Early Career Award), and the William T Grant Foundation.
Lereya, Suzet Tanya Copeland, William E Costello, E Jane Wolke, Dieter eng MH63671/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ R01 MH063970/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ DA/MH11301/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/ MH63970/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ Medical Research Council/United Kingdom MC_PC_15018/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom 102215/2/13/2/Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom R01 MH048085/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ R01 MH063671/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2015/09/12 06:00 Lancet Psychiatry. 2015 Jun;2(6):524-31. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(15)00165-0. Epub 2015 May 27.
Keywords: *Bullying; *Mental Health; Adolescent; Adult; Anxiety/psychology; Child; Cohort Studies; Depression/psychology; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Male; North Carolina; Peer Group; Suicide/psychology; United Kingdom; Young Adult

Oxytocin during pregnancy and early postpartum: individual patterns and maternal-fetal attachment. - Levine, Ari; Zagoory-Sharon, Orna; Feldman, Ruth; Weller, Aron (Peptides, 2007)
Oxytocin (OT), a nanopeptide hormone, plays a role in the emergence of maternal behavior, yet few studies examined OT in humans across pregnancy and the postpartum. We followed healthy women at three points: first trimester of pregnancy, third trimester, and first postpartum month. Plasma OT levels showed high individual stability. A third of the sample showed consistent OT levels, whereas others showed increasing or decreasing trends or peak in late pregnancy. The increase in OT from early to late pregnancy correlated with higher maternal-fetal bonding. These data may help set standards for OT levels and underscore links with maternal-infant attachment.
Keywords: Adolescent; Adult; Female; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Maternal Behavior; Maternal-Fetal Relations; Oxytocin; Postpartum Period; Pregnancy; Pregnancy Trimester, First; Pregnancy Trimester, Third; Radioimmunoassay

The Neural Basis of Empathy and Empathic Behavior in the Context of Chronic Trauma - Levy, Jonathan; Yirmiya, Karen; Goldstein, Abraham; Feldman, Ruth (Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2019)

Teacher-child interactions in Chile and their associations with prekindergarten outcomes - Leyva, D.; Weiland, C.; Barata, M.; Yoshikawa, H.; Snow, C.; Trevino, E.; Rolla, A. (Child Dev, 2015)
Quality of teacher-child interactions is central to prekindergarten children's learning. In the United States, the quality of teacher-child interactions is commonly assessed using the teaching through interactions conceptual framework and an associ/ated observational tool, the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). This study examined: (a) whether there was evidence supporting three distinctive domains of teacher-child interactions in Chile (construct validity) and (b) whether these domains predicted end-of-prekindergarten language, academic, and executive function skills in Chile (predictive validity). The sample consisted of 91 Chilean prekindergarten classrooms (1,868 four-year-old children). The findings support both construct and predictive validity of the teaching through interactions conceptual framework as assessed by the CLASS in Chile. Implications for cross-country comparison of quality of teacher-child interactions in prekindergarten classrooms are discussed.
Leyva, Diana Weiland, Christina Barata, M Yoshikawa, Hirokazu Snow, Catherine Trevino, Ernesto Rolla, Andrea eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't 2015/01/30 06:00 Child Dev. 2015 May-Jun;86(3):781-99. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12342. Epub 2015 Jan 27.
Keywords: *Faculty; *Interpersonal Relations; Adult; Child Development/*physiology; Child, Preschool; Chile; Cross-Cultural Comparison; Educational Measurement/*standards; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Neuropsychological Tests/*standards; Reproducibility of Results

Handbook on counselling asylum seeking and refugee women victims of gender-based violence - Lilja, I. (European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme, 2019)
Keywords: Asylum; Consultancy; Gender issues; gender-based violence; migration; Refugees; Training; Violence

The Interplay Between Nutrition and Stress in Pregnancy: Implications for Fetal Programming of Brain Development - Lindsay, K. L.; Buss, C.; Wadhwa, P. D.; Entringer, S. (Biol Psychiatry, 2019)
Growing evidence supports an important role for the intrauterine environment in shaping fetal development and subsequent child health and disease risk. The fetal brain is particularly plastic, whereby even subtle changes in structure and function produced by in utero conditions can have long-term implications. Based on the consideration that conditions related to energy substrate and likelihood of survival to reproductive age are particularly salient drivers of fetal programming, maternal nutrition and stress represent the most commonly, but independently, studied factors in this context. However, the effects of maternal nutrition and stress are context dependent and may be moderated by one another. Studies examining the effects of the bidirectional nutrition-stress interplay in pregnancy on fetal programming of brain development are beginning to emerge in the literature. This review incorporates all currently available animal and human studies of this interplay and provides a synthesis and critical discussion of findings. Nine of the 10 studies included here assessed nutrition-stress interactions and offspring neurodevelopmental or brain development outcomes. Despite significant heterogeneity in study design and methodology, two broad patterns of results emerge to suggest that the effects of prenatal stress on various aspects of brain development may be mitigated by 1) higher fat diets or increased intake and/or status of specific dietary fats and 2) higher dietary intake or supplementation of targeted nutrients. The limitations of these studies are discussed, and recommendations are provided for future research to expand on this important area of fetal programming of brain development.
1873-2402 Lindsay, Karen L Buss, Claudia Wadhwa, Pathik D Entringer, Sonja R01 AG050455/AG/NIA NIH HHS/United States R01 MD010738/MD/NIMHD NIH HHS/United States R01 MH105538/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/United States Journal Article Review United States Biol Psychiatry. 2019 Jan 15;85(2):135-149. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.06.021. Epub 2018 Jul 4.
Keywords: brain development; Fetal programming; neurodevelopment; nutrition; Pregnancy; stress

Report of the Attorney General's National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence: Defending childhood: Protect, heal, thrive - Listenbee, R. (U.S. Department of Justice, 2012)
Keywords: violence exposure

A good start in life will ensure a sustainable future for all - Lo, Selina; Das, Pamela; Horton, Richard (The Lancet)

Inequalities in attendance in organized early learning programmes in developing societies: findings from household surveys - E. Loaiza; P. Engle; P. Engle (Compare, 2009)

Peace Monuments & Peacemakers Around the World - Lollis, E.W. (2019)
This is the world's largest collection of peace monument information. We have identified about 4,000 peace monuments and museums on all continents and in most nations of the world. See book, "Monumental Beauty" that features 416 peace monuments & museums in 70 nations - as well as a 12-page "History of Peace."
Keywords: peace monuments; peacemaking

Emergency Child Care: Issues to Consider - Lombardi, J (Early Childhood Workforce Initiative, 2020)
Keywords: COVID-19; emergency child care

On Aggression - Lorenz, K. (Routledge, 2002)

The effectiveness of early head start for 3-year-old children and their parents: lessons for policy and programs. - Love, John M; Kisker, Ellen Eliason; Ross, Christine; Raikes, Helen; Constantine, Jill; Boller, Kimberly; Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne; Chazan-Cohen, Rachel; Tarullo, Louisa Banks; Brady-Smith, Christy; Fuligni, Allison Sidle; Schochet, Peter Z; et al. (Dev Psychol, 2005)
Early Head Start, a federal program begun in 1995 for low-income pregnant women and families with infants and toddlers, was evaluated through a randomized trial of 3,001 families in 17 programs. Interviews with primary caregivers, child assessments, and observations of parent-child interactions were completed when children were 3 years old. Caregivers were diverse in race-ethnicity, language, and other characteristics. Regression-adjusted impact analyses showed that 3-year-old program children performed better than did control children in cognitive and language development, displayed higher emotional engagement of the parent and sustained attention with play objects, and were lower in aggressive behavior. Compared with controls, Early Head Start parents were more emotionally supportive, provided more language and learning stimulation, read to their children more, and spanked less. The strongest and most numerous impacts were for programs that offered a mix of home-visiting and center-based services and that fully implemented the performance standards early.
Keywords: Acculturation; Adaptation, Psychological; Child Development; Child, Preschool; Early Intervention (Education); Educational Status; Ethnic Groups; Female; Humans; Language Development; Male; Outcome Assessment (Health Care); Parent-Child Relations; Parenting; Personality Assessment; Program Evaluation; Psychosocial Deprivation; Public Policy; Single Parent; Socialization; United States

Community‐based early intervention for children with behavioural, emotional and social problems: evaluation of the Scallywags Scheme - Lovering, Kathryn; Frampton, Ian; Crowe, Ben; Moseley, Alice; Broadhead, Moira (Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 2006)

A randomized controlled trial of Child FIRST: a comprehensive home-based intervention translating research into early childhood practice. - Lowell, Darcy I; Carter, Alice S; Godoy, Leandra; Paulicin, Belinda; Briggs-Gowan, Margaret J (Child Dev, 2011)
This randomized, controlled trial was designed to document the effectiveness of Child FIRST (Child and Family Interagency, Resource, Support, and Training), a home-based, psychotherapeutic, parent-child intervention embedded in a system of care. Multirisk urban mothers and children, ages 6-36 months (N = 157) participated. At the 12-month follow-up, Child FIRST children had improved language (odds ratio [OR] = 4.4) and externalizing symptoms (OR= 4.7) compared to Usual Care children. Child FIRST mothers had less parenting stress at the 6-month follow-up (OR = 3.0), lower psychopathology symptoms at 12-month follow-up (OR = 4.0), and less protective service involvement at 3 years postbaseline (OR = 2.1) relative to Usual Care mothers. Intervention families accessed 91% of wanted services relative to 33% among Usual Care. Thus, Child FIRST is effective with multirisk families raising young children across multiple child and parent outcomes.
Keywords: Child Abuse; Child Behavior Disorders; Child Welfare; Child, Preschool; Comprehensive Health Care; Education; Family Therapy; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Home Care Services; House Calls; Humans; Infant; Male; Risk Factors; Social Environment; United States

Risk of poor development in young children in low-income and middle-income countries: an estimation and analysis at the global, regional, and country level - Lu, C.; Black, M. M.; Richter, L. M. (Lancet Glob Health, 2016)
BACKGROUND: A 2007 study published in The Lancet estimated that approximately 219 million children aged younger than 5 years were exposed to stunting or extreme poverty in 2004. We updated the 2004 estimates with the use of improved data and methods and generated estimates for 2010. METHODS: We used country-level prevalence of stunting in children younger than 5 years based on the 2006 Growth Standards proposed by WHO and poverty ratios from the World Bank to estimate children who were either stunted or lived in extreme poverty for 141 low-income and middle-income countries in 2004 and 2010. To avoid counting the same children twice, we excluded children jointly exposed to stunting and extreme poverty from children living in extreme poverty. To examine the robustness of estimates, we also used moderate poverty measures. FINDINGS: The 2007 study underestimated children at risk of poor development. The estimated number of children exposed to the two risk factors in low-income and middle-income countries decreased from 279.1 million (95% CI 250.4 million-307.4 million) in 2004 to 249.4 million (209.3 million-292.6 million) in 2010; prevalence of children at risk fell from 51% (95% CI 46-56) to 43% (36-51). The decline occurred in all income groups and regions with south Asia experiencing the largest drop. Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest prevalence in both years. These findings were robust to variations in poverty measures. INTERPRETATION: Progress has been made in reducing the number of children exposed to stunting or poverty between 2004 and 2010, but this is still not enough. Scaling up of effective interventions targeting the most vulnerable children is urgently needed. FUNDING: National Institutes of Health, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Hilton Foundation, and WHO.
2214-109x Lu, Chunling Black, Maureen M Richter, Linda M K01 HD071929/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural England Lancet Glob Health. 2016 Dec;4(12):e916-e922. doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(16)30266-2. Epub 2016 Oct 4.
Keywords: *Developing Countries; *Global Health; *Growth Disorders; *Poverty; Africa South of the Sahara; Asia; Child Development/*physiology; Child, Preschool; Humans; Income; Infant; Male; Risk Factors

Risk of poor development in young children in low-income and middle-income countries: an estimation and analysis at the global, regional, and country level - Lu, Chunling; Black, Maureen M.; Richter, Linda M. (The Lancet Global Health)

On the mechanics of economic development - Lucas, Robert E. (Journal of Monetary Economics, 1988)

Multi-Year Evaluation of the Effectiveness of a Resilience-Based Prevention Program for Young Children - Lynch, Kathleen Bodisch; Geller, Susan Rose; Schmidt, Melinda G. (The Journal of Primary Prevention, 2003)

Good early development-the right of every child - Machel, Graça (The Lancet)

The Psychology of Peace: An Introduction, 2nd Edition: An Introduction - MacNair, R.M. (ABC-CLIO, 2011)

Association Between Screen Time and Children’s Performance on a Developmental Screening Test - Madigan, Sheri; Browne, Dillon; Racine, Nicole; Mori, Camille; Tough, Suzanne (JAMA Pediatrics, 2019)

Effects of early experience on female behavioural and reproductive development in rhesus macaques. - Maestripieri, D. (Proc Biol Sci, 2005)
A growing body of research on humans suggests that exposure to a stressful family environment or father absence from home during childhood is associated with early female puberty and greater interest in infants among adolescent girls. This effect may be mediated by early exposure to harsh and inconsistent maternal care, but the mechanisms by which maternal care affects female reproductive maturation are not known. The present study reports sex differences in interest in infants among juvenile rhesus macaques similar to those observed in human adolescents. Furthermore, juvenile females that were exposed to harsh and inconsistent maternal care in infancy showed higher interest in infants than controls. Evidence from cross-fostered females indicated that these effects resulted from early experience and not genetic inheritance from the mother. There were no significant differences in female age at first conception in relation to the quality of maternal care received during infancy. Macaque females exposed to harsh and inconsistent maternal care in infancy tended to have higher cortisol responses to stress and to corticotropin-releasing hormone than controls in the first three years of life. Furthermore, females with higher cortisol responses to stress exhibited higher interest in infants. These findings suggest that some of the effects of early parental care on female reproductive maturation may be mediated by developmental changes in the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
Keywords: Analysis of Variance; Animals; Attitude; Behavior, Animal; Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone; Female; Hydrocortisone; Hypothalamo-Hypophyseal System; Macaca mulatta; Maternal Behavior; Observation; Pituitary-Adrenal System; Sexual Behavior, Animal; Stress, Physiological

Risk factors for infant abuse and neglect in group-living rhesus monkeys - Maestripieri, D.; Carroll, K. A. (Psychological SciencePsychological SciencePsychological Science, 1998)
This study investigated maternal abuse and neglect of off-spring in a large population of rhesus monkeys over a period of 29 years. Abuse and neglect did not occur together and were associated with different risk factors. Infant abuse was concentrated in 8 of 57 families and among closely related females. Abuse was also repeated with successive offspring. In contrast infant neglect was not affected by genealogical factors, was not repeated with successive offspring, and was displayed mostly by primiparous mothers. These results suggest that abuse and neglect may be different phenomena and that infant abuse in group-living monkeys could represent a good animal model for investigating the mechanisms underlying the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment.
165py Times Cited:26 Cited References Count:14
Keywords: macaques

Early experience affects the intergenerational transmission of infant abuse in rhesus monkeys. - Maestripieri, D. (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2005)
Maternal abuse of offspring in macaque monkeys shares some similarities with child maltreatment in humans, including its transmission across generations. This study used a longitudinal design and a cross-fostering experiment to investigate whether abusive parenting in rhesus macaques is transmitted from mothers to daughters and whether transmission occurs through genetic or experiential factors. Nine of 16 females who were abused by their mothers in their first month of life, regardless of whether they were reared by their biological mothers or by foster mothers, exhibited abusive parenting with their firstborn offspring, whereas none of the females reared by nonabusive mothers did. These results suggest that the intergenerational transmission of infant abuse in rhesus monkeys is the result of early experience and not genetic inheritance. The extent to which the effects of early experience on the intergenerational transmission of abusive parenting are mediated by social learning or experience-induced physiological alterations remains to be established.
Keywords: Analysis of Variance; Animals; Behavior, Animal; Female; Longitudinal Studies; Macaca mulatta; Maternal Behavior; Observation; Parenting

Comparative and evolutionary perspectives - Maestripieri, Dario (Pathways to peace: The transformative power of children and families, 2014)
Any effort to understand or shape human behavior must take into consideration the notion that there are universal tendencies to behave in particular ways, which are shared by all human beings, as well as differences in the extent to which these tendencies are expressed in particular individuals. Taking a comparative and an evolutionary perspective can help us understand the universal aspects of human aggressive and peaceful tendencies as well as their variation among individuals. Human aggressiveness has a biological basis, but it is neither necessary nor inevitable. Aggressive competition is common in some animal species but uncommon in others, depending on the ratio between the benefits of aggression (obtaining resources or status) and its costs (physical, physiological, psychological, or social). Humans have a high potential for aggression, but aggressive tendencies can be suppressed in particular environmental circumstances. Individuals living in different environments adopt slow or fast life history strategies that make them adapted to those environments. The quality of the early environment, including social experience, is a key determinant of life history strategies. selfish, exploitative, and aggressive tendencies are more common in individuals with fast life histories who are exposed to early stress, violence, harsh parenting, or unpredictable changes in their environment. Comparative research on animal behavior can provide the theoretical framework for understanding the effects of early experience on the development of aggressiveness and peacefulness as well as elucidate some of the physiological or social mechanisms underlying these effects. Rhesus macaque females exposed to harsh and abusive parenting in the first few months of life show anxiety, impulsiveness, and abusive parenting in adulthood. They also reach puberty earlier, are more interested in infants, and tend to be more fertile but die at a younger age than other females. Rhesus macaques raised by nurturing mothers who provide emotional and social support, but also encourage their independence, show normal maternal behavior in adulthood and greater resilience in response to stressful challenges. Even species-typical aggressive tendencies can be reduced through manipulation of the early social environment. Young rhesus macaques with high propensities for aggression can acquire effective skills for peaceful conflict resolution after cohabitation with young stumptail macaques, a species in (p.132) which peaceful conflict management and resolution are more common. The findings of comparative research are therefore consistent with those of research in developmental psychology in indicating that a supportive family1 environment and positive experiences acquired during child development are important prerequisites for the creation of peaceful and resilient adults.
Keywords: Aggression; biological basis; harsh parenting; peacefulness; stress; Violence

Early maternal rejection affects the development of monoaminergic systems and adult abusive parenting in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). - Maestripieri, D.; Higley, J. D.; Lindell, S. G.; Newman, T. K.; McCormack, K. M.; Sanchez, M. M. (Behav Neurosci, 2006)
This study investigated the effects of early exposure to variable parenting style and infant abuse on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) concentrations of monoamine metabolites and examined the role of monoaminergic function in the intergenerational transmission of infant abuse in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). Forty-three infants reared by their biological mothers and 15 infants that were cross-fostered at birth and reared by unrelated mothers were followed longitudinally through their first 3 years of life or longer. Approximately half of the infants were reared by abusive mothers and half by nonabusive controls. Abused infants did not differ from controls in CSF concentrations of 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA), homovanillic acid (HVA), or 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylgycol (MHPG). Abused infants, however, were exposed to higher rates of maternal rejection, and highly rejected infants had lower CSF 5-HIAA and HVA than low-rejection infants. The abused females who became abusive mothers in adulthood had lower CSF 5-HIAA than the abused females who did not. A similar trend was also observed among the cross-fostered females, suggesting that low serotonergic function resulting from early exposure to high rates of maternal rejection plays a role in the intergenerational transmission of infant abuse.
Keywords: Age Factors; Aggression; Animals; Animals, Newborn; Brain; Female; Homovanillic Acid; Hydroxyindoleacetic Acid; Macaca mulatta; Male; Maternal Behavior; Methoxyhydroxyphenylglycol; Parenting; Rejection (Psychology); Stress, Psychological

Dosage matters: The relationship between participation in the Nurturing Parenting Program for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers and subsequent child maltreatment - Maher, Erin J.; Marcynyszyn, Lyscha A.; Corwin, Tyler W.; Hodnett, Rhenda (Children and Youth Services Review, 2011)

International migration of unaccompanied minors: trends, health risks, and legal protection - Corona Maioli, Susanna; Bhabha, Jacqueline; Wickramage, Kolitha; Wood, Laura C N; Erragne, Ludivine; Ortega García, Omar; Burgess, Rochelle; Digidiki, Vasileia; Aldridge, Robert W; Devakumar, Delan (The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 2021)
Keywords: child rights and protection; Health; migration

Measuring the quality of early childhood education: Associations with children’s development from a national study with the IMCEIC tool in Colombia - Maldonado‐Carreño, Carolina; Yoshikawa, Hirokazu; Escallon, Eduardo; Ponguta, Liliana Angélica; Nieto, Ana María; Kagan, Sharon Lynn; Rey‐ Guerra, Catalina; Cristancho, Juan Camilo; Mateus, Angy; Caro, Luz Angela; Aragón, Carlos Andrés; Rodríguez, Ana María; et al. (Child Development, 2022)
Keywords: Colombia; early childhood development; Early childhood education; Social Emotional Development

A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth - Mankiw, N. G.; Romer, D.; Weil, D. N. (The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1992)
This paper examines whether the Solow growth model is consistent with the international variation in the standard of living. It shows that an augmented Solow model that includes accumulation of human as well as physical capital provides an excellent description of the cross-country data. The paper also examines the implications of the Solow model for convergence in standards of living, that is, for whether poor countries tend to grow faster than rich countries. The evidence indicates that, holding population growth and capital accumulation constant, countries converge at about the rate the augmented Solow model predicts.

Accessible Strategies to Support Children's Mental Health and Wellbeing in Emergencies:Experience from the Rohingya Refugee Camp - Mansur, Samier (Journal on Education in Emergencies, 2021)
Keywords: children; conflict; ECD; Health; Mental Health; MPHSS ECD; peace; Psychosocial; Refugee; Technology; well-being; youth

Academic and School Adjustment Outcomes Following Placement in a Developmental First-Grade Program - Mantzicopoulos, Panayota (The Journal of Educational Research, 2003)

Coexistence Is in the Eye of the Beholder: Evaluating Intergroup Encounter Interventions Between Jews and Arabs in Israel - Maoz, Ifat (Journal of Social Issues, 2004)

Disasters and their impact on child development: introduction to the special section. - Masten, A. S.; Osofsky, J. D. (Child Dev, 2010)
Keywords: Child; Child Development; Disasters; Humans; Research; Stress Disorders, Traumatic

Resilience in children threatened by extreme adversity: frameworks for research, practice, and translational synergy. - Masten, A. S. (Dev Psychopathol, 2011)
This article delineates parallel frameworks that grew out of the research on risk and resilience over the past four decades, a framework for research and a framework for practice, and then discusses the promise of an emerging synthesis. The research framework defined the meaning, models, and methods that successfully guided four waves of research to date on the nature and processes involved in human resilience. The applied framework emerged in response to urgent needs of children and families faced by adversity and those charged with helping them, resulting in guidelines for translating the unfolding but incomplete research evidence into action. The application of a resilience approach transformed practice in many fields concerned with promoting resilience in people at risk for problems, revolutionizing the mission, models, measures, and methods of practice to align with the emphasis on positive adaptation and strengths defining a resilience-based approach. Yet these interventions rarely translated back to inform and refine resilience theory in ways that would accelerate progress to promote resilience more effectively. The concluding section on translational synergy discusses the potential for a synthesis of basic and applied resilience frameworks as the next steps toward realizing the original objective and promise of resilience science.
Keywords: Child; Child Abuse; Humans; Life Change Events; Resilience, Psychological; Translational Medical Research

Academic Risk and Resilience in the Context of Homelessness - Masten, A. S.; Cutuli, J. J.; Herbers, J. E.; Hinz, E.; Obradovic, J.; Wenzel, A. J. (Child Development PerspectivesChild Development PerspectivesChild Development Perspectives, 2014)
Family homelessness in the United States has increased over the past two decades, raising concerns about associated risks for child development. In this article, we describe a translational research program focused on academic risk and resilience in homeless and highly mobile children. We find that although these children share many risk factors with other disadvantaged children, they are higher on an underlying continuum of risk. Additionally, marked variability has been observed among children who experience homelessness, both in risk level and achievement, with many children manifesting resilience. We discuss implications for research and efforts to address disparities in achievement.
At2rk Times Cited:2 Cited References Count:40
Keywords: Achievement; achievement gap; adversity; childhood; children experiencing homelessness; cumulative risk; executive function; families; highly mobile children; homeless; mobility; reactivity; resilience; stress; success

Child development in the context of disaster, war, and terrorism: pathways of risk and resilience. - Masten, A. S.; Narayan, A. J. (Annu Rev Psychol, 2012)
This review highlights progress over the past decade in research on the effects of mass trauma experiences on children and youth, focusing on natural disasters, war, and terrorism. Conceptual advances are reviewed in terms of prevailing risk and resilience frameworks that guide basic and translational research. Recent evidence on common components of these models is evaluated, including dose effects, mediators and moderators, and the individual or contextual differences that predict risk or resilience. New research horizons with profound implications for health and well-being are discussed, particularly in relation to plausible models for biological embedding of extreme stress. Strong consistencies are noted in this literature, suggesting guidelines for disaster preparedness and response. At the same time, there is a notable shortage of evidence on effective interventions for child and youth victims. Practical and theory-informative research on strategies to protect children and youth victims and promote their resilience is a global priority.
Keywords: Child; Child Development; Disasters; Humans; Psychology, Child; Resilience, Psychological; Risk Factors; Terrorism; War

Resilience in developing systems: progress and promise as the fourth wave rises. - Masten, A. S. (Dev Psychopathol, 2007)
Perspectives based on the first three waves of resilience research are discussed with the goal of informing the fourth wave of work, which is characterized by a focus on multilevel analysis and the dynamics of adaptation and change. Resilience is defined as a broad systems construct, referring to the capacity of dynamic systems to withstand or recover from significant disturbances. As the systems perspective on resilience builds strength and technologies of measuring and analyzing multiple levels of functioning and their interactions improve, it is becoming feasible to study gene-environment interactions, the development of adaptive systems and their role in resilience, and to conduct experiments to foster resilience or reprogram the fundamental adaptive systems that protect development in the context of adversity. Hot spots for future research to study and integrate multiple levels of analysis are delineated on the basis of evidence gleaned from the first waves of resilience research.
Keywords: Humans; Mental Disorders; Stress, Psychological

An fMRI investigation of empathy for 'social pain' and subsequent prosocial behavior. - Masten, C. L.; Morelli, S. A.; Eisenberger, N. I. (Neuroimage, 2011)
Despite empathy's importance for promoting social interactions, neuroimaging research has largely overlooked empathy during social experiences. Here, we examined neural activity during empathy for social exclusion and assessed how empathy-related neural processes might relate to subsequent prosocial behavior toward the excluded victim. During an fMRI scan, participants observed one person being excluded by two others, and afterwards sent emails to each of these 'people.' Later, a group of raters assessed how prosocial (e.g., helpful, comforting) the emails were. Observing exclusion (vs. inclusion) activated regions associated with mentalizing (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus), and highly empathic individuals activated both mentalizing regions and social pain-related regions (anterior insula, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex). Additionally, the empathy-related activity in the anterior insula and medial prefrontal cortex was associated with later prosocial behavior toward the victim, and exploratory mediation analyses indicated that medial prefrontal cortex activity, in particular, may support the link between trait empathy and prosocial behavior. Overall, findings suggest that empathy-related neural responses to social experiences may promote spontaneous prosocial treatment of those in need.
Keywords: Adolescent; Brain; Empathy; Female; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Pain; Social Behavior; Social Isolation; Young Adult

Risk and Resilience in the Educational Success of Homeless and Highly Mobile Children: Introduction to the Special Section - Masten, A. S. (Educational ResearcherEducational ResearcherEducational Researcher, 2012)
Homelessness and mobility in the context of poverty and economic crisis is an issue of rising local, national, and global concern for many stakeholders, including educators and education leaders. The articles featured in this special issue offer important data and commentary on the significance of homelessness and mobility for school success. This introduction provides a brief overview of the special section, which includes four empirical articles and an integrative commentary. These articles underscore the importance of mobility as well as poverty for achievement disparities and the practical value of integrated data and collaborative research for informing educational practice and policy.
083jr Times Cited:4 Cited References Count:14
Keywords: achievement gap; disparities; factor analysis; Longitudinal Studies; Poverty; regression analyses; urban education

Promoting the capacity for peace in early childhood: Perspectives from research on resilience in children and families - Masten, A. S. (Pathways to peace: The transformative power of children and families, 2014)
Lessons gleaned from five decades of research on resilience in children and youth exposed to trauma and adversity of many kinds, including war and family violence, may have important conceptual and practical implications for efforts to understand and promote pathways of peace in human adaptation and development. This chapter highlights concepts, approaches, findings, and controversies from studies of resilience that may prove informative for understanding and promoting pathways to peace in early childhood. These include a relational developmental systems perspective on peace; an emphasis on positive goals, processes, and pathways; issues in defining how well human systems at multiple levels are doing; delineation of adaptive systems that promote and protect peaceful function in interacting human systems; consideration of developmental timing and cascading influences among individual children and their nurturing environments; and the importance of intervention evidence for advancing a translational science agenda for peace. Resilience science also suggests that delineating processes of peace and peacebuilding in childhood requires attention to processes by which interacting systems shape the development and experiences of childhood pertinent to peace, particularly in the nurturing environments of childrearing and early education. Resilience frameworks suggest three basic approaches to promoting capacity for peace in the lives of children: mitigating risk or preventing exposure to experiences that undermine capacity for peace; boosting resources and opportunities that nurture the capacity for peace; and mobilizing powerful adaptive systems that support and protect human capabilities for peace in hazardous circumstances. Theoretically, these strategies should contribute to building capacity among children for peace, as a foundation for learning peaceful means of social interactions, managing conflict, and responding to stress or trauma. Additionally, resilience frameworks emphasize the importance of strategic timing and targeting to interrupt negative and facilitate positive cascades in (p.252) development and boost the return on investments in children. Findings from research on early onset pathways toward and away from violence are discussed, including preventive interventions that promote prosocial development while also reducing antisocial outcomes, including violence. Key questions are raised for consideration by those aiming to promote peace through early childhood policies and practices. The first set of questions stems from the principle that “competence begets competence” in human development, asking whether building success in the developmental tasks of early childhood might also promote potential peace-related goals, attitudes, skills and processes in children and their ecologies, which could in turn contribute to peace at the level of families, communities, or societies. The second set considers whether reducing structural violence (i.e., inequalities in income, healthcare, education, and opportunities in early childhood) might promote peace along with better health and well-being at the level of individuals and societies. A third set raises provocative issues related to possibilities that capacities and skills intended to promote peace could also be applied to promote conflict and war and questions about whether violence can be adaptive or peace-promoting under some circumstances.
Keywords: adaptive systems; Early childhood education; resilience; Risk

The significance of childhood competence and problems for adult success in work: a developmental cascade analysis. - Masten, A. S.; Desjardins, C. D.; McCormick, C. M.; Kuo, S. I.; Long, J. D. (Dev Psychopathol, 2010)
Success in the domain of work is a salient developmental task of adulthood and a key indicator of adaptive function in the evaluation of health and psychopathology. Yet few studies have examined pathways to work competence, especially with strategies testing for cumulative cascade effects over time. Cascade models spanning 20 years were tested via structural equation modeling, linking work competence in early adulthood to antecedent competence in work and other domains of competence in childhood and emerging adulthood. Data were drawn from the Project Competence longitudinal study of 205 school children followed for 20 years. Relative fit of alternative models was evaluated by the Bayesian information criterion. As hypothesized, the effectiveness of adaptive behavior in earlier age-salient developmental task domains forecasted later work competence, which also showed strong concurrent links to competence in other domains. Results suggest there are numerous pathways by which success or failure in major developmental task domains in childhood and adolescence may influence adaptation in other domains and eventually work competence, both concurrently and cumulatively over time. Cascade effects highlight the potential significance for later work competence of childhood conduct (antisocial vs. rule-abiding behavior) and social competence with peers, in addition to the ongoing role that academic attainment may have for work success. Work competence also showed considerable stability over a 10-year period during early adulthood. Implications and applications for future research and intervention are discussed.
Keywords: Achievement; Adaptation, Psychological; Adult; Child; Educational Status; Female; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Models, Psychological; Resilience, Psychological; Social Behavior; Socioeconomic Factors

Ordinary magic. Resilience processes in development. - Masten, A S (Am Psychol, 2001)
The study of resilience in development has overturned many negative assumptions and deficit-focused models about children growing up under the threat of disadvantage and adversity. The most surprising conclusion emerging from studies of these children is the ordinariness of resilience. An examination of converging findings from variable-focused and person-focused investigations of these phenomena suggests that resilience is common and that it usually arises from the normative functions of human adaptational systems, with the greatest threats to human development being those that compromise these protective systems. The conclusion that resilience is made of ordinary rather than extraordinary processes offers a more positive outlook on human development and adaptation, as well as direction for policy and practice aimed at enhancing the development of children at risk for problems and psychopathology.
Keywords: Adaptation, Psychological; Child; Child, Preschool; Humans; Psychology, Child

Witnessing peer rejection during early adolescence: neural correlates of empathy for experiences of social exclusion. - Masten, C. L.; Eisenberger, N. I.; Pfeifer, J. H.; Dapretto, M. (Soc Neurosci, 2010)
Neuroimaging studies with adults have begun to reveal the neural bases of empathy; however, this research has focused on empathy for physical pain, rather than empathy for negative social experiences. Moreover, this work has not examined adolescents who may frequently witness and empathize with others that experience negative social experiences such as peer rejection. Here, we examined neural activity among early adolescents observing social exclusion compared to observing inclusion, and how this activity related to both trait empathy and subsequent prosocial behavior. Participants were scanned while they observed an individual whom they believed was being socially excluded. At least one day prior to the scan they reported their trait empathy, and following the scan they wrote emails to the excluded victim that were rated for prosocial behavior (e.g., helping, comforting). Observing exclusion compared to inclusion activated regions involved in mentalizing (i.e., dorsomedial prefrontal cortex), particularly among highly empathic individuals. Additionally, individuals who displayed more activity in affective, pain-related regions during observed exclusion compared to inclusion subsequently wrote more prosocial emails to excluded victims. Overall findings suggest that when early adolescents witness social exclusion in their daily lives, some may actually 'feel the pain' of the victims and act more prosocially toward them as a result.
Keywords: Adolescent; Age Factors; Brain; Child; Empathy; Female; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Male; Peer Group; Rejection (Psychology); Social Behavior

Developmental cascades. - Masten, A. S.; Cicchetti, D. (Dev Psychopathol, 2010)
Keywords: Child; Child Development; Humans; Mental Disorders; Psychopathology

Resilience in developmental psychopathology: contributions of the Project Competence Longitudinal Study. - Masten, A. S.; Tellegen, A. (Dev Psychopathol, 2012)
Contributions of the Project Competence Longitudinal Study (PCLS) to resilience science and developmental psychopathology are highlighted in this article. Initiated by Norman Garmezy, the PCLS contributed models, measures, and methods, as well as working definitions of concepts like competence, developmental tasks, protective factors, and resilience. Findings from the study corroborated the feasibility of studying adaptation in a normative group of school children, identifying patterns of resilience, competence without major adversity, and maladaptive paths through life. Competence was multidimensional, showing continuity and change over time. Cascading effects across domains indicated that competence and problems spread over time. Thus, adult achievements in developmental tasks were rooted in childhood and adolescence. Young people who showed resilience had much in common with similarly successful peers who experienced less adversity over time, including high-quality relationships with parents and other adults, and good cognitive, as well as social-emotional, skills. Maladaptive youth in the study often faced high adversity with little adaptive capacity (internal or external) and tended to generate stressful experiences. Resilience often emerged in childhood and endured, but there also were late bloomers whose lives turned around in the transition to adulthood. The role of collaboration and mentorship in the PCLS is also discussed.
Keywords: Adaptation, Psychological; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Models, Psychological; Personality; Resilience, Psychological

Global perspectives on resilience in children and youth. - Masten, A. S. (Child Dev, 2014)
Global concerns about the consequences of disasters, political violence, disease, malnutrition, maltreatment, and other threats to human development and well-being have sparked a surge of international interest in resilience science. This article highlights progress and issues in research that aims to understand variations in human adaptation to adverse experiences. Two key questions are considered: Why is a new wave of global research on resilience important for developmental science? and Why is developmental science important for global resilience? The conclusion calls for developmental scientists to engage in international efforts to promote resilience.
Keywords: Adolescent; Biomedical Research; Child; Child Development; Global Health; Humans; Resilience, Psychological

Mediation in the schools: Self-regulation, self-esteem, and self-discipline - Maxwell, Jennifer P. (Mediation Quarterly, 1989)

Parental representations and subclinical changes in postpartum mood - Mayes, L. C.; Leckman, J. F. (J Infant Ment Health, 2007)
Parents commonly experience a depressed mood in the immediate postpartum period, and a smaller proportion experience clinical postpartum depression. Among other factors, mental representations of early parenting experience appear to contribute to the development of major depressive disorder. The present study examines the role of mental representations of early parenting in subclinical fluctuations of parental mood in the peripartum period. Forty-one middle-class mothers and thirty-six fathers were interviewed on three occasions from late in their pregnancy until three months postpartum. Ratings of social support and past history of depression were obtained along with ratings of parents' perceptions of their early parenting experiences. Parents' perception of their own maternal care was significantly predictive of peripartum fluctuations in mood. Parents who perceived their own mothers as less caring showed more dysphoria at 8 months gestation, and at 2 weeks and 3 months postpartum. Perceptions of maternal protectiveness or fathers' caring and protectiveness were not related to prenatal or postpartum mood fluctuations. Both mothers and fathers who perceived their mothers as affectionless and/or controlling were more likely to experience fluctuations in mood in the peripartum period. A past history of one or more episodes of major depression and ratings of perceived social support were also associated with more peripartum mood fluctuation. These findings suggest that early parenting experiences set the threshold for how vulnerable parents are in the peripartum period to the depressive costs of engaging with a new infant.
Mayes, Linda C Leckman, James F eng 2007/05/01 00:00 Infant Ment Health J. 2007 May;28(3):281-295. doi: 10.1002/imhj.20136.

Disease burden and mental health system capacity: WHO Atlas study of 117 low- and middle-income countries - McBain, R.; Salhi, C.; Morris, J. E.; Salomon, J. A.; Betancourt, T. S. (Br J Psychiatry, 2012)
BACKGROUND: Treatment coverage for mental disorders ranges from less than 10% to more than 90% across low- and middle-income (LAMI) countries. Studies have yet to examine whether the capacity of mental health systems might be adversely affected by the burdens of unrelated conditions such as HIV/AIDS. AIMS: To examine whether the magnitude of disease burden from communicable, perinatal, maternal and nutritional conditions - commonly referred to as Group 1 diseases - is inversely associated with mental health system capacity in LAMI countries. METHOD: Multiple regression analyses were undertaken using data from 117 LAMI countries included in the 2011 World Health Organization (WHO) Mental Health Atlas. Capacity was defined in terms of human resources and infrastructure. Regressions controlled for effects of political stability, government health expenditures, income inequality and neuropsychiatric disease burden. RESULTS: Higher Group 1 disease burden was associated with fewer psychiatrists, psychologists and nurses in the mental health sector, as well as reduced numbers of out-patient facilities and psychiatric beds in mental hospitals and general hospitals (t = -2.06 to -7.68, P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Evidence suggests that mental health system capacity in LAMI countries may be adversely affected by the magnitude of their Group 1 disease burden.
McBain, Ryan Salhi, Carmel Morris, Jodi E Salomon, Joshua A Betancourt, Theresa S eng England 2012/11/10 06:00 Br J Psychiatry. 2012 Dec;201(6):444-50. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.112.112318. Epub 2012 Nov 8.
Keywords: Chronic Disease/economics/*epidemiology; Cost of Illness; Developing Countries/economics/*statistics & numerical data; Economic Development; Global Health; Health Manpower/economics; Health Services Accessibility/standards/statistics & numerical data; Humans; Mental Disorders/economics/*therapy; Mental Health Services/economics/*supply & distribution; Prevalence; Quality of Life

Costs and cost-effectiveness of a mental health intervention for war-affected young persons: decision analysis based on a randomized controlled trial - McBain, R. K.; Salhi, C.; Hann, K.; Salomon, J. A.; Kim, J. J.; Betancourt, T. S. (Health Policy Plan, 2016)
BACKGROUND: One billion children live in war-affected regions of the world. We conducted the first cost-effectiveness analysis of an intervention for war-affected youth in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as a broader cost analysis. METHODS: The Youth Readiness Intervention (YRI) is a behavioural treatment for reducing functional impairment associated with psychological distress among war-affected young persons. A randomized controlled trial was conducted in Freetown, Sierra Leone, from July 2012 to July 2013. Participants (n = 436, aged 15-24) were randomized to YRI (n = 222) or care as usual (n = 214). Functional impairment was indexed by the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Scale; scores were converted to quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). An 'ingredients approach' estimated financial and economic costs, assuming a societal perspective. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) were also expressed in terms of gains across dimensions of mental health and schooling. Secondary analyses explored whether intervention effects were largest among those worst-off (upper quartile) at baseline. RESULTS: Retention at 6-month follow-up was 85% (n = 371). The estimated economic cost of the intervention was $104 per participant. Functional impairment was lower among YRI recipients, compared with controls, following the intervention but not at 6-month follow-up, and yielded an ICER of $7260 per QALY gained. At 8-month follow-up, teachers' interviews indicated that YRI recipients observed higher school enrolment [P < 0.001, odds ratio (OR) 8.9], denoting a cost of $431 per additional school year gained, as well as better school attendance (P = 0.007, OR 34.9) and performance (P = 0.03, effect size = -1.31). Secondary analyses indicated that the intervention was cost-effective among those worst-off at baseline, yielding an ICER of $3564 per QALY gained. CONCLUSIONS: The YRI is not cost-effective at a willingness-to-pay threshold of three times average gross domestic product per capita. However, results indicate that the YRI translated into a range of benefits, such as improved school enrolment, not captured by cost-effectiveness analysis. We also outline areas for modification to improve cost-effectiveness in future trials. TRIAL REGISTRATION: clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: RPCGA-YRI-21003.
McBain, Ryan K Salhi, Carmel Hann, Katrina Salomon, Joshua A Kim, Jane J Betancourt, Theresa S eng P30 AG024409/AG/NIA NIH HHS/ 1F31MH097333-01A1/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ 5K01MH077246-05/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ 5P30AG024409-08/AG/NIA NIH HHS/ Randomized Controlled Trial Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2015/09/09 06:00 Health Policy Plan. 2016 May;31(4):415-24. doi: 10.1093/heapol/czv078. Epub 2015 Sep 7.
Keywords: *Cost-effectiveness analysis; *disability; *Health Care Costs; *Mental Health; *school; *sub-Saharan Africa; *war; *Warfare; Adolescent; Cost-Benefit Analysis; Female; Humans; Male; Mental Health Services/economics; Psychotherapy, Group/*economics/methods; Sierra Leone; Stress, Psychological/*etiology/therapy; Treatment Outcome; Young Adult

Improving outcomes for caregivers through treatment of young people affected by war: a randomized controlled trial in Sierra Leone - McBain, R. K.; Salhi, C.; Hann, K.; Kellie, J.; Kamara, A.; Salomon, J. A.; Kim, J. J.; Betancourt, T. S. (Bull World Health Organ, 2015)
OBJECTIVE: To measure the benefits to household caregivers of a psychotherapeutic intervention for adolescents and young adults living in a war-affected area. METHODS: Between July 2012 and July 2013, we carried out a randomized controlled trial of the Youth Readiness Intervention--a cognitive-behavioural intervention for war-affected young people who exhibit depressive and anxiety symptoms and conduct problems--in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Overall, 436 participants aged 15-24 years were randomized to receive the intervention (n = 222) or care as usual (n = 214). Household caregivers for the participants in the intervention arm (n = 101) or control arm (n = 103) were interviewed during a baseline survey and again, if available (n = 155), 12 weeks later in a follow-up survey. We used a burden assessment scale to evaluate the burden of care placed on caregivers in terms of emotional distress and functional impairment. The caregivers' mental health--i.e. internalizing, externalizing and prosocial behaviour--was evaluated using the Oxford Measure of Psychosocial Adjustment. Difference-in-differences multiple regression analyses were used, within an intention-to-treat framework, to estimate the treatment effects. FINDINGS: Compared with the caregivers of participants of the control group, the caregivers of participants of the intervention group reported greater reductions in emotional distress (scale difference: 0.252; 95% confidence interval, CI: 0.026-0.4782) and greater improvements in prosocial behaviour (scale difference: 0.249; 95% CI: 0.012-0.486) between the two surveys. CONCLUSION: A psychotherapeutic intervention for war-affected young people can improve the mental health of their caregivers.
McBain, Ryan K Salhi, Carmel Hann, Katrina Kellie, Jim Kamara, Alimamy Salomon, Joshua A Kim, Jane J Betancourt, Theresa S eng Randomized Controlled Trial Switzerland 2015/12/17 06:00 Bull World Health Organ. 2015 Dec 1;93(12):834-41. doi: 10.2471/BLT.14.139105. Epub 2015 Oct 16.
Keywords: Adolescent; Adult; Anxiety/therapy; Caregivers/*psychology; Cognitive Therapy/*methods; Conduct Disorder/therapy; Depression/therapy; Female; Humans; Interviews as Topic; Linear Models; Male; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Psychotherapy; Sierra Leone; Stress, Psychological/*psychology; Treatment Outcome; Warfare; Young Adult

Peace dividends and beyond: Contributions of administrative and social services to peacebuilding - McCandless, E.; UnitedNationsPeacebuildingSupportOffice (United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office, 2012)
Keywords: peacebuilding

Culture, Cognition and Conflict: How Neuroscience Can Help to Explain Cultural Differences in Negotiation and Conflict Management - J. F. McCarthy; C. A. Scheraga; D. E. Gibson (Neuroeconomics and the Firm, 2010)

The state of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world’s most vulnerable children. ECPC panel session summary report. G20 Civil Society (C20) Virtual Summit — C20 Saudi Arabia 2020 - McCarthy, M.; ECPC (Early Childhood Peace Consortium (ECPC), 2021)
Report on the Early Childhood Peace Consortium (ECPC) “Global Call to Action in Response to COVID-19 for Children in Fragile and Conflict-affected Settings”, delivered by a panel of multidisciplinary ECPC experts at the G20 Civil Society (C20) Virtual Summit — C20 Saudi Arabia 2020 ► READ the 21-page C20 Summit ECPC panel session report: “The State of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the World’s Most Vulnerable Children.
Keywords: C20; COVID-19; displaced children; early childhood development; G20; refugee and migrant children

Blackwell Handbook of Early Childhood Development - McCartney, K.; Phillips, D. (Wiley, 2006)
The Blackwell Handbook of Early Childhood Development presents a comprehensive summary of research into child development from age two to seven. Comprises 30 contributions from both established scholars and emerging leaders in the field The editors have a distinguished reputation in early childhood development Covers biological development, cognitive development, language development, and social, emotional and regulatory development Considers the applications of psychology to the care and education of young children, treating issues such as poverty, media, and the transition to school A valuable resource for students, scholars and practitioners dealing with young children

Early Childhood Developmental Status in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: National, Regional, and Global Prevalence Estimates Using Predictive Modeling - McCoy, D. C.; Peet, E. D.; Ezzati, M.; Danaei, G.; Black, M. M.; Sudfeld, C. R.; Fawzi, W.; Fink, G. (PLoS Med, 2017)
BACKGROUND: The development of cognitive and socioemotional skills early in life influences later health and well-being. Existing estimates of unmet developmental potential in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are based on either measures of physical growth or proxy measures such as poverty. In this paper we aim to directly estimate the number of children in LMICs who would be reported by their caregivers to show low cognitive and/or socioemotional development. METHODS AND FINDINGS: The present paper uses Early Childhood Development Index (ECDI) data collected between 2005 and 2015 from 99,222 3- and 4-y-old children living in 35 LMICs as part of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) programs. First, we estimate the prevalence of low cognitive and/or socioemotional ECDI scores within our MICS/DHS sample. Next, we test a series of ordinary least squares regression models predicting low ECDI scores across our MICS/DHS sample countries based on country-level data from the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Nutrition Impact Model Study. We use cross-validation to select the model with the best predictive validity. We then apply this model to all LMICs to generate country-level estimates of the prevalence of low ECDI scores globally, as well as confidence intervals around these estimates. In the pooled MICS and DHS sample, 14.6% of children had low ECDI scores in the cognitive domain, 26.2% had low socioemotional scores, and 36.8% performed poorly in either or both domains. Country-level prevalence of low cognitive and/or socioemotional scores on the ECDI was best represented by a model using the HDI as a predictor. Applying this model to all LMICs, we estimate that 80.8 million children ages 3 and 4 y (95% CI 48.1 million, 113.6 million) in LMICs experienced low cognitive and/or socioemotional development in 2010, with the largest number of affected children in sub-Saharan Africa (29.4.1 million; 43.8% of children ages 3 and 4 y), followed by South Asia (27.7 million; 37.7%) and the East Asia and Pacific region (15.1 million; 25.9%). Positive associations were found between low development scores and stunting, poverty, male sex, rural residence, and lack of cognitive stimulation. Additional research using more detailed developmental assessments across a larger number of LMICs is needed to address the limitations of the present study. CONCLUSIONS: The number of children globally failing to reach their developmental potential remains large. Additional research is needed to identify the specific causes of poor developmental outcomes in diverse settings, as well as potential context-specific interventions that might promote children's early cognitive and socioemotional well-being.
1549-1676 McCoy, Dana Charles Peet, Evan D Orcid: 0000-0001-6147-3475 Ezzati, Majid Orcid: 0000-0002-2109-8081 Danaei, Goodarz Black, Maureen M Sudfeld, Christopher R Fawzi, Wafaie Fink, Gunther 100693/Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't United States PLoS Med. 2016 Jun 7;13(6):e1002034. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002034. eCollection 2016 Jun.
Keywords: *Child Development; *Cognition; *Models, Theoretical; *Social Behavior; Child, Preschool; Developing Countries/*statistics & numerical data; Economics; Emotions; Female; Humans; Male

Emergent growth patterns of early education self-control problems among children from underresourced American families - McDermott, Paul A.; Watkins, Marley W.; Rovine, Michael J.; Rikoon, Samuel H.; Irwin, Clare W.; Reyes, Roland; Chao, Jessica L. (Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 2019)

Critical issues in peace and conflict studies: Theory, practice, and pedagogy - McEvoy-Levy, S.; Matyók, T.; Senehi, J.; Byrne, S. (Critical issues in peace and conflict studies: Theory, practice, and pedagogy, 2011)
Keywords: Education / General; Political Science / International Relations / General; Political Science / Peace; Political Science / Public Policy / Cultural Policy; Social Science / Violence in Society

Brain on stress: how the social environment gets under the skin. - McEwen, Bruce S (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2012)
Stress is a state of the mind, involving both brain and body as well as their interactions; it differs among individuals and reflects not only major life events but also the conflicts and pressures of daily life that alter physiological systems to produce a chronic stress burden that, in turn, is a factor in the expression of disease. This burden reflects the impact of not only life experiences but also genetic variations and individual health behaviors such as diet, physical activity, sleep, and substance abuse; it also reflects stable epigenetic modifications in development that set lifelong patterns of physiological reactivity and behavior through biological embedding of early environments interacting with cumulative change from experiences over the lifespan. Hormones associated with the chronic stress burden protect the body in the short run and promote adaptation (allostasis), but in the long run, the burden of chronic stress causes changes in the brain and body that can lead to disease (allostatic load and overload). Brain circuits are plastic and remodeled by stress to change the balance between anxiety, mood control, memory, and decision making. Such changes may have adaptive value in particular contexts, but their persistence and lack of reversibility can be maladaptive. However, the capacity of brain plasticity to effects of stressful experiences in adult life has only begun to be explored along with the efficacy of top-down strategies for helping the brain change itself, sometimes aided by pharmaceutical agents and other treatments.
Keywords: Allostasis; Brain; Child; Glucocorticoids; Hippocampus; Humans; Models, Neurological; Models, Psychological; Neuronal Plasticity; Social Conditions; Social Environment; Stress, Physiological; Stress, Psychological

Epigenetic regulation of the glucocorticoid receptor in human brain associates with childhood abuse. - McGowan, Patrick O; Sasaki, Aya; D'Alessio, Ana C; Dymov, Sergiy; Labonté, Benoit; Szyf, Moshe; Turecki, Gustavo; Meaney, Michael J (Nat Neurosci, 2009)
Maternal care influences hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function in the rat through epigenetic programming of glucocorticoid receptor expression. In humans, childhood abuse alters HPA stress responses and increases the risk of suicide. We examined epigenetic differences in a neuron-specific glucocorticoid receptor (NR3C1) promoter between postmortem hippocampus obtained from suicide victims with a history of childhood abuse and those from either suicide victims with no childhood abuse or controls. We found decreased levels of glucocorticoid receptor mRNA, as well as mRNA transcripts bearing the glucocorticoid receptor 1F splice variant and increased cytosine methylation of an NR3C1 promoter. Patch-methylated NR3C1 promoter constructs that mimicked the methylation state in samples from abused suicide victims showed decreased NGFI-A transcription factor binding and NGFI-A-inducible gene transcription. These findings translate previous results from rat to humans and suggest a common effect of parental care on the epigenetic regulation of hippocampal glucocorticoid receptor expression.
Keywords: Adult; Adult Survivors of Child Abuse; Base Sequence; Cell Line; DNA Methylation; Epigenesis, Genetic; Female; Hippocampus; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Molecular Sequence Data; Promoter Regions, Genetic; Receptors, Glucocorticoid; Suicide; Young Adult

Trauma and psychotic experiences: transnational data from the World Mental Health Survey - McGrath, J. J.; Saha, S.; Lim, C. C. W.; Aguilar-Gaxiola, S.; Alonso, J.; Andrade, L. H.; Bromet, E. J.; Bruffaerts, R.; Caldas de Almeida, J. M.; Cardoso, G.; de Girolamo, G.; Fayyad, J.; et al. (Br J Psychiatry, 2017)
BackgroundTraumatic events are associated with increased risk of psychotic experiences, but it is unclear whether this association is explained by mental disorders prior to psychotic experience onset.AimsTo investigate the associations between traumatic events and subsequent psychotic experience onset after adjusting for post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental disorders.MethodWe assessed 29 traumatic event types and psychotic experiences from the World Mental Health surveys and examined the associations of traumatic events with subsequent psychotic experience onset with and without adjustments for mental disorders.ResultsRespondents with any traumatic events had three times the odds of other respondents of subsequently developing psychotic experiences (OR = 3.1, 95% CI 2.7-3.7), with variability in strength of association across traumatic event types. These associations persisted after adjustment for mental disorders.ConclusionsExposure to traumatic events predicts subsequent onset of psychotic experiences even after adjusting for comorbid mental disorders.
1472-1465 McGrath, John J Saha, Sukanta Lim, Carmen C W Aguilar-Gaxiola, Sergio Alonso, Jordi Andrade, Laura H Bromet, Evelyn J Bruffaerts, Ronny Caldas de Almeida, Jose M Cardoso, Graca de Girolamo, Giovanni Fayyad, John Florescu, Silvia Gureje, Oye Haro, Josep M Kawakami, Norito Koenen, Karestan C Kovess-Masfety, Viviane Lee, Sing Lepine, Jean-Pierre McLaughlin, Katie A Medina-Mora, Maria E Navarro-Mateu, Fernando Ojagbemi, Akin Posada-Villa, Jose Sampson, Nancy Scott, Kate M Tachimori, Hisateru Ten Have, Margreet Kendler, Kenneth S Kessler, Ronald C WHO World Mental Health Survey Collaborators R01 DA016558/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/United States R01 MH103291/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/United States R03 TW006481/TW/FIC NIH HHS/United States R01 MH069864/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/United States U01 MH060220/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/United States R01 MH070884/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/United States R13 MH066849/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/United States Journal Article England Br J Psychiatry. 2017 Dec;211(6):373-380. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.117.205955. Epub 2017 Nov 2.
Keywords: *Life Change Events; Comorbidity; Global Health/statistics & numerical data; Health Surveys/statistics & numerical data; Humans; Mental Disorders/*epidemiology; Prevalence; Psychological Trauma/complications/*epidemiology; Psychotic Disorders/*epidemiology/etiology

Socio-economic status is associated with epigenetic differences in the pSoBid cohort. - McGuinness, Dagmara; McGlynn, Liane M; Johnson, Paul C D; MacIntyre, Alan; Batty, G David; Burns, Harry; Cavanagh, Jonathan; Deans, Kevin A; Ford, Ian; McConnachie, Alex; McGinty, Agnes; McLean, Jennifer S; et al. (Int J Epidemiol, 2012)
BACKGROUND: Epigenetic programming and epigenetic mechanisms driven by environmental factors are thought to play an important role in human health and ageing. Global DNA methylation has been postulated as an epigenetic marker for epidemiological studies as it is reflective of changes in gene expression linked to disease. How epigenetic mechanisms are affected by psychological, sociological and biological determinants of health still remains unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between socio-economic and lifestyle factors and epigenetic status, as measured by global DNA methylation content, in the pSoBid cohort, which is characterized by an extreme socio-economic and health gradient. METHODS: DNA was extracted from peripheral blood leukocytes using the Maxwell® 16 System and Maxwell® 16 Blood DNA Purification kit (Promega, UK). Global DNA methylation was assessed using Methylamp™ Global DNA Methylation Quantification Ultra kit (Epigentek, USA). Associations between global DNA methylation and socio-economic and lifestyle factors were investigated in linear regression models. RESULTS: Global DNA hypomethylation was observed in the most socio-economically deprived subjects. Job status demonstrated a similar relationship, with manual workers having 24% lower DNA methylation content than non-manual. Additionally, associations were found between global DNA methylation content and biomarkers of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and inflammation, including fibrinogen and interleukin-6 (IL-6), after adjustment for socio-economic factors. CONCLUSIONS: This study has indicated an association between epigenetic status and socio-economic status (SES). This relationship has direct implications for population health and is reflected in further associations between global DNA methylation content and emerging biomarkers of CVD.
Keywords: Adult; Cohort Studies; DNA Methylation; Epigenesis, Genetic; Female; Humans; Life Style; Male; Middle Aged; Risk Factors; Social Class

Fathers Matter for Peace, Equity and Social Inclusion - McLean, K.E.; Panter-Brick, C. (Conflict, Resilience, and Health Program, Yale University, 2022)
Keywords: early childhood development; equity; Fathers; governance and policy; social inclusion

‘Post-crisis masculinities’ in Sierra Leone: revisiting masculinity theory - McLean, Kristen E. (Gender, Place & Culture, 2021)
Keywords: crisis of masculinity; fatherhood; masculinities; Post-conflict; Sierra Leone

Using Sociodrama to Help Young Children Problem Solve - Pecaski McLennan, Deanna Marie (Early Childhood Education Journal, 2012)

Intergenerational Pathways to Peace: Putting Children First. Policy Brief, Global Health Studies Program - Merritt ME; Peterson E; Shaheen R; Zerbib A; Mellinghoff S; Nuli S; De Oliveira S; Ramirez JB; Fallon C; Panter-Brick C; Hein S (Global Health Studies Program, Jackson School of Global Affairs, Yale University, 2024)
In this brief, we argue that Early Childhood Development (ECD) is a catalyst for intergenerational peacebuilding and community stability. ECD interventions, encompassing learning, stimulation, and social cohesion, foster vital skills for peaceful societies. We argue that nutrition serves as a critical entry point for implementing integrated ECD initiatives, which hold promise in advancing strategic peacebuilding. We underscore the significance of adequate nutrition and caregiver empowerment. Nutrition’s role in positive social behavior and cognitive development is a critical component, offering a pathway to a more peaceful society. Quality caregiving, influenced by caregiver mental health, directly impacts child development. Programs targeting maternal well-being, like Pakistan’s Thinking Healthy initiative, yield positive outcomes for both mothers and children. Moreover, we highlight the essential pillars of social cohesion and economic development in peacebuilding. These elements reinforce each other, reducing conflict risks and fostering peaceful societies. Ultimately, we emphasize the transformative potential of children and families as peacebuilders, with ECD programs serving as a valuable tool for grassroots peace initiatives. We conclude that investing in integrated ECD and nutrition programs, alongside caregiver empowerment, presents a cost- effective approach to impactful peacebuilding, nurturing sustainable peace, prosperity, and community cohesion.
Keywords: caregiving; early childhood development; Mental Health; nutrition; Parenting; peacebuilding; Social cohesion; violence prevention

Maternal care as a model for experience-dependent chromatin plasticity? - Meaney, Michael J; Szyf, Moshe (Trends Neurosci, 2005)
It is widely acknowledged that the nature of the maternal care a child receives can have long-term repercussions, and that children raised in deprived environments can have severe cognitive and behavioural difficulties that last into adulthood. The mechanisms underlying these effects are not understood, but recent data from rodents provide insight into a potential molecular mechanism. Like humans, rodent maternal behaviour towards offspring can effect long-term changes in responses of the offspring to stress throughout the rest of their lives. Remarkably, these changes reflect permanently altered gene expression, so-called "environmental programming", and its downstream effects on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. This review discusses the nature of this environmental programming--the mechanism by which it occurs in rats, its long-term implications, and opportunities for its reversal in rodents and ultimately in humans.
Keywords: Animals; Chromatin; Epigenesis, Genetic; Female; Gene Expression; Humans; Hypothalamo-Hypophyseal System; Maternal Behavior; Models, Genetic; Pituitary-Adrenal System; Stress, Psychological

Epigenetics and the biological definition of gene x environment interactions. - Meaney, Michael J (Child Dev, 2010)
Variations in phenotype reflect the influence of environmental conditions during development on cellular functions, including that of the genome. The recent integration of epigenetics into developmental psychobiology illustrates the processes by which environmental conditions in early life structurally alter DNA, providing a physical basis for the influence of the perinatal environmental signals on phenotype over the life of the individual. This review focuses on the enduring effects of naturally occurring variations in maternal care on gene expression and phenotype to provide an example of environmentally driven plasticity at the level of the DNA, revealing the interdependence of gene and environmental in the regulation of phenotype.
Keywords: Child; Child Development; Critical Period (Psychology); DNA; Epigenesis, Genetic; Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; Genome, Human; Humans; Maternal Behavior; Phenotype; Social Environment

Identifying the roles of fathers in post-war northern Uganda: Groundwork for a parenting intervention - Mehus, Christopher J; Wieling, Elizabeth; Achan, Laura; Oloya, Okot Thomas (African Studies, 2018)
Keywords: Fathers; parent-child relationships; Uganda

A review of parenting programs in developing countries: opportunities and challenges for preventing emotional and behavioral difficulties in children. - Mejia, Anilena; Calam, Rachel; Sanders, Matthew R (Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev, 2012)
Many children in developing countries are at risk of emotional and behavioral difficulties, which are likely to be elevated due to the effects of poverty. Parenting programs have shown to be effective preventative strategies in high-income countries, but to date the research on their effectiveness in lower-income countries is limited. International organizations such as the World Health Organization have called for the implementation of programs to prevent behavioral difficulties through the development of stable relationships between children and their parents. The aim of the present paper was to review the literature on parenting programs in developing countries in order to identify challenges, opportunities and directions for further research. First, reports of international organizations were reviewed in order to gain a preliminary overview of the field. In a second stage, a non-systematic review was carried out. Databases were searched in order to identify empirical evaluations of parenting programs in low-income countries. Finally, a systematic review was carried out to specifically identify evaluations of programs targeting emotional or behavioral outcomes. Only one study had a strong methodology among those designed to prevent emotional and behavioral outcomes. Opportunities for further program development and research are identified.
Keywords: Child; Child Behavior Disorders; Child, Preschool; Developing Countries; Education; Humans; Parenting; Poverty; Program Evaluation

State of the world's fathers 2021: Structural solutions to achieve equality in care work - MenCare (MenCare, 2021)
Keywords: COVID-19; equity; father involvement; Parenting

Intergenerational Pathways to Peace: Putting Children First - Matthew Elmore Merritt*; Emma Peterson*; Roaa Shaheen*; Alison Zerbib*; Sabrina Mellinghoff; Shreya Nuli; Sophia De Oliveira; Jordi Bertran Ramirez; Sascha Hein; Cara Fallon; Catherine Panter-Brick (Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, 2024)
Keywords: Children and families; early childhood development; nutrition; Social cohesion; Support for caregivers

The Effects of a Reading-Based Intervention on Emotion Processing in Children Who Have Suffered Early Adversity and War Related Trauma - Michalek, Julia E.; Lisi, Matteo; Awad, Deema; Hadfield, Kristin; Mareschal, Isabelle; Dajani, Rana (Frontiers in Psychology, 2021)
Keywords: affective development; emotion recognition; reading intervention; refugee children; war trauma

￼Youth Agency and Peacebuilding: An Analysis of the Role of Formal and Non-Formal Education - Mieke, T. A.; Cardozo, L.; Higgins, S.; Le Mat, M. L. J. (UNICEF Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR), University of Amsterdam Centre for International Education, University of Sussex UNESCO Centre at Ulster University, 2016)

Responding to the ECEC needs of children of refugees and asylum seekers in Europe and North America - MigrationPolicyInstitute (Migration Policy Institute, 2018)
Keywords: child refugees; children and family policy; Early childhood education; Education; immigrant integration; immigration policy and law

Integration of prevention of violence against children and early child development. - Mikton, Christopher; MacMillan, Harriet; Dua, Tarun; Betancourt, Theresa S (Lancet Glob Health, 2014)
Keywords: Child; Child Abuse; Child Development; Child, Preschool; Delivery of Health Care, Integrated; Health Promotion; Humans; Preventive Health Services; Violence

Integration of prevention of violence against children and early child development - Mikton, C.; MacMillan, H.; Dua, T.; Betancourt, T. S. (Lancet Glob HealthLancet Glob HealthLancet Glob Health, 2014)
2214-109x Mikton, Christopher MacMillan, Harriet Dua, Tarun Betancourt, Theresa S 001/World Health Organization/International Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England Lancet Glob Health. 2014 Aug;2(8):e442-3. doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(14)70233-5. Epub 2014 Jul 23.
Keywords: *Child Development; Child; Child Abuse/*prevention & control; Child, Preschool; Delivery of Health Care, Integrated/*organization & administration; Health Promotion/*organization & administration; Humans; Preventive Health Services/*organization & administration; Violence/*prevention & control

Child maltreatment prevention: a systematic review of reviews. - Mikton, Christopher; Butchart, Alexander (Bull World Health Organ, 2009)
OBJECTIVE: To synthesize recent evidence from systematic and comprehensive reviews on the effectiveness of universal and selective child maltreatment prevention interventions, evaluate the methodological quality of the reviews and outcome evaluation studies they are based on, and map the geographical distribution of the evidence. METHODS: A systematic review of reviews was conducted. The quality of the systematic reviews was evaluated with a tool for the assessment of multiple systematic reviews (AMSTAR), and the quality of the outcome evaluations was assessed using indicators of internal validity and of the construct validity of outcome measures. FINDINGS: The review focused on seven main types of interventions: home visiting, parent education, child sex abuse prevention, abusive head trauma prevention, multi-component interventions, media-based interventions, and support and mutual aid groups. Four of the seven - home-visiting, parent education, abusive head trauma prevention and multi-component interventions - show promise in preventing actual child maltreatment. Three of them - home visiting, parent education and child sexual abuse prevention - appear effective in reducing risk factors for child maltreatment, although these conclusions are tentative due to the methodological shortcomings of the reviews and outcome evaluation studies they draw on. An analysis of the geographical distribution of the evidence shows that outcome evaluations of child maltreatment prevention interventions are exceedingly rare in low- and middle-income countries and make up only 0.6% of the total evidence base. CONCLUSION: Evidence for the effectiveness of four of the seven main types of interventions for preventing child maltreatment is promising, although it is weakened by methodological problems and paucity of outcome evaluations from low- and middle-income countries.
Keywords: Child; Child Abuse; Databases, Bibliographic; Humans; Review Literature as Topic

Social disadvantage, genetic sensitivity, and children's telomere length. - Mitchell, Colter; Hobcraft, John; McLanahan, Sara S; Siegel, Susan Rutherford; Berg, Arthur; Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne; Garfinkel, Irwin; Notterman, Daniel (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2014)
Disadvantaged social environments are associated with adverse health outcomes. This has been attributed, in part, to chronic stress. Telomere length (TL) has been used as a biomarker of chronic stress: TL is shorter in adults in a variety of contexts, including disadvantaged social standing and depression. We use data from 40, 9-y-old boys participating in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to extend this observation to African American children. We report that exposure to disadvantaged environments is associated with reduced TL by age 9 y. We document significant associations between low income, low maternal education, unstable family structure, and harsh parenting and TL. These effects were moderated by genetic variants in serotonergic and dopaminergic pathways. Consistent with the differential susceptibility hypothesis, subjects with the highest genetic sensitivity scores had the shortest TL when exposed to disadvantaged social environments and the longest TL when exposed to advantaged environments.
Keywords: Adult; Child; Dopamine; Gene-Environment Interaction; Humans; Male; Regression Analysis; Serotonin; Signal Transduction; Social Environment; Telomere Homeostasis; Vulnerable Populations

Anthropology and the health of populations--global trends and local contexts - Montag, D.; Panter-Brick, C.; Russell, A. (Br J Gen Pract, 2002)
Montag, Doreen Panter-Brick, Catherine Russell, Andrew eng Congresses England 2002/08/13 10:00 Br J Gen Pract. 2002 Aug;52(481):691.
Keywords: *Anthropology; *Public Health; Humans

What works in parenting support? A Review of the International Evidence - P. Moran; D. Ghate; A. van der Merwe (UK Department of Education and Skills Research Report RR574, 2004)

Violent conflict and population health in the Middle East Introduction - Moran, M.; Khawaja, M.; Khoshnood, K.; Ramahi, T.; Inhorn, M. C. (Global Public HealthGlob Public Health, 2011)
Sp. Iss. SI 780ml Times Cited:1 Cited References Count:29
Keywords: Afghanistan; armed conflict; mental-health; Refugees; resilience; Torture; War

Early Childhood Matters 2019 - Moreno, T.; Lombardi, J. (Bernard van Leer Foundation, 2019)
Keywords: child health; child nutrition; child protection; early childhood development (ECD); early learning

Epigenetic reprogramming in mammals. - Morgan, Hugh D; Santos, Fátima; Green, Kelly; Dean, Wendy; Reik, Wolf (Hum Mol Genet, 2005)
Epigenetic marking systems confer stability of gene expression during mammalian development. Genome-wide epigenetic reprogramming occurs at stages when developmental potency of cells changes. At fertilization, the paternal genome exchanges protamines for histones, undergoes DNA demethylation, and acquires histone modifications, whereas the maternal genome appears epigenetically more static. During preimplantation development, there is passive DNA demethylation and further reorganization of histone modifications. In blastocysts, embryonic and extraembryonic lineages first show different epigenetic marks. This epigenetic reprogramming is likely to be needed for totipotency, correct initiation of embryonic gene expression, and early lineage development in the embryo. Comparative work demonstrates reprogramming in all mammalian species analysed, but the extent and timing varies, consistent with notable differences between species during preimplantation development. Parental imprinting marks originate in sperm and oocytes and are generally protected from this genome-wide reprogramming. Early primordial germ cells possess imprinting marks similar to those of somatic cells. However, rapid DNA demethylation after midgestation erases these parental imprints, in preparation for sex-specific de novo methylation during gametogenesis. Aberrant reprogramming of somatic epigenetic marks after somatic cell nuclear transfer leads to epigenetic defects in cloned embryos and stem cells. Links between epigenetic marking systems appear to be developmentally regulated contributing to plasticity. A number of activities that confer epigenetic marks are firmly established, while for those that remove marks, particularly methylation, some interesting candidates have emerged recently which need thorough testing in vivo. A mechanistic understanding of reprogramming will be crucial for medical applications of stem cell technology.
Keywords: Animals; Cell Lineage; DNA Methylation; Embryonic Development; Epigenesis, Genetic; Female; Gene Expression Regulation; Germ Cells; Histones; Male; Mice; Models, Biological; Models, Genetic; Stem Cells

The case for transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in humans. - Morgan, Daniel K; Whitelaw, Emma (Mamm Genome, 2008)
Work in the laboratory mouse has identified a group of genes, called metastable epialleles, that are informing us about the mechanisms by which the epigenetic state is established in the embryo. At these alleles, transcriptional activity is dependent on the epigenetic state and this can vary from cell to cell in the one tissue type. The decision to be active or inactive is probabilistic and sensitive to environmental influences. Moreover, in some cases the epigenetic state at these alleles can survive across generations, termed transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. Together these findings raise the spectre of Lamarckism and epigenetics is now being touted as an explanation for some intergenerational effects in human populations. In this review we will discuss the evidence so far.
Keywords: Alleles; Animals; Disease; Epigenesis, Genetic; Family Characteristics; Humans; Inheritance Patterns

Human biological development and peace: Genes, brains, safety, and justice - B. Morgan; D. Sunar; S. Carter; J. Leckman; D.P. Fry; E.B. Keverne; I. Kolassa; R. Kumsta; D. Olds (Pathways to peace: The transformative power of children and families, 2014)
This chapter examines the concept of peace from a biopsychosocial perspective. It reviews available knowledge concerning gene-environment regulatory interactions and their consequences for neurodevelopment, particularly during sensitive periods early in life. The hypothesis is explored that efforts on the part of parents to protect, nurture, and stimulate their children can lead to physically, psychologically, and socially healthier developmental trajectories and support the emergence of more peaceful families and communities. It is clear, however, that adverse environments, as in the context of structural violence, may result in lower parental investment in child rearing and negative outcomes for social harmony and health over the course of life. More research is thus needed to understand more fully the potential positive impact that interventions aimed at encouraging families to increase their investment in early child development will have on societal peace. The role of groups in shaping human behavior toward conflict or conflict resolution and peace is examined. Further research is needed to increase current understanding on the neurobiology of groups. In addition, steps need to be taken across multiple sectors of society to reduce all forms of direct and structural violence, as this will surely lead to “better” parenting behaviors, “better” childhood trajectories, and a model of fairness to guide interactions between groups.
Keywords: biopsychosocial perspectives; Child Rearing; gene-environment interactions; neurodevelopment; parental investment; peace

Early interventions to prevent mental disorders--learning lessons from the field of psychosis - Moriyama, T. S.; Miguel, E. C.; Leckman, J. (Rev Bras Psiquiatr, 2011)
Moriyama, Tais S Miguel, Euripedes C Leckman, James eng por Editorial Introductory Brazil 2012/02/09 06:00 Rev Bras Psiquiatr. 2011 Oct;33 Suppl 2:s125-8.
Keywords: *Early Medical Intervention; Bipolar Disorder/prevention & control; Humans; Mental Disorders/*prevention & control; Psychotic Disorders/prevention & control; Risk Factors

Efficacy of a home-visiting intervention aimed at improving maternal sensitivity, child attachment, and behavioral outcomes for maltreated children: a randomized control trial. - Moss, Ellen; Dubois-Comtois, Karine; Cyr, Chantal; Tarabulsy, George M; St-Laurent, Diane; Bernier, Annie (Dev Psychopathol, 2011)
The efficacy of a short-term attachment-based intervention for changing risk outcomes for children of maltreating families was examined using a randomized control trial. Sixty-seven primary caregivers reported for maltreatment and their children (1-5 years) were randomly assigned to an intervention or control group. The intervention group received 8 weekly home visits directed at the caregiver-child dyad and focused on improving caregiver sensitivity. Intervention sessions included brief discussions of attachment-emotion regulation-related themes and video feedback of parent-child interaction. Comparison of pre- and posttest scores revealed significant improvements for the intervention group in parental sensitivity and child attachment security, and a reduction in child disorganization. Older children in the intervention group also showed lower levels of internalizing and externalizing problems following intervention. This is the first study to demonstrate the efficacy of short-term attachment-based intervention in enhancing parental sensitivity, improving child security, and reducing disorganization for children in the early childhood period.
Keywords: Adult; Child Abuse; Child Behavior; Child Health Services; Child, Preschool; Feedback, Psychological; Female; House Calls; Humans; Infant; Mother-Child Relations; Object Attachment; Parenting; Socioeconomic Factors; Video Recording

Building a generation of reconciliation: The role of early childhood development in peace building - MotherChildEducationFoundation; AÇEV (2009)

Supporting the youngest refugees and their families - MovingMindsAlliance (Moving Minds Alliance, 2019)
Keywords: early childhood development (ECD); early years; forced displacement; nurturing care; refugee and migrant children; refugee families

COVID-19 in Pre-Existing Humanitarian Crises - MovingMindsAlliance (Moving Minds Alliance, 2020)
Keywords: COVID-19; humanitarian crisis

ECD and early learning for children in crisis and conflict - MovingMindsAlliance (Moving Minds Alliance, 2018)
Keywords: early childhood development (ECD); early learning; refugees and migrants

The Effects of Child Abuse and Exposure to Domestic Violence on Adolescent Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior Problems - Moylan, Carrie A.; Herrenkohl, Todd I.; Sousa, Cindy; Tajima, Emiko A.; Herrenkohl, Roy C.; Russo, M. Jean (Journal of family violence, 2010)
This study examines the effects of child abuse and domestic violence exposure in childhood on adolescent internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Data for this analysis are from the Lehigh Longitudinal Study, a prospective study of 457 youth addressing outcomes of family violence and resilience in individuals and families. Results show that child abuse, domestic violence, and both in combination (i.e., dual exposure) increase a child’s risk for internalizing and externalizing outcomes in adolescence. When accounting for risk factors associated with additional stressors in the family and surrounding environment, only those children with dual exposure had an elevated risk of the tested outcomes compared to non-exposed youth. However, while there were some observable differences in the prediction of outcomes for children with dual exposure compared to those with single exposure (i.e., abuse only or exposure to domestic violence only), these difference were not statistically significant. Analyses showed that the effects of exposure for boys and girls are statistically comparable.
20495613[pmid] J Fam Violence

After abduction: exploring access to reintegration programs and mental health status among young female abductees in Northern Uganda - Muldoon, K. A.; Muzaaya, G.; Betancourt, T. S.; Ajok, M.; Akello, M.; Petruf, Z.; Nguyen, P.; Baines, E. K.; Shannon, K. (Confl Health, 2014)
BACKGROUND: Reintegration programs are commonly offered to former combatants and abductees to acquire civilian status and support services to reintegrate into post-conflict society. Among a group of young female abductees in northern Uganda, this study examined access to post-abduction reintegration programming and tested for between group differences in mental health status among young women who had accessed reintegration programming compared to those who self-reintegrated. METHODS: This cross-sectional study analysed interviews from 129 young women who had previously been abducted by the Lords Resistance Army (LRA). Data was collected between June 2011-January 2012. Interviews collected information on abduction-related experiences including age and year of abduction, manner of departure, and reintegration status. Participants were coded as 'reintegrated' if they reported >/=1 of the following reintegration programs: traditional cleansing ceremony, received an amnesty certificate, reinsertion package, or had gone to a reception centre. A t-test was used to measure mean differences in depression and anxiety measured by the Acholi Psychosocial Assessment Instrument (APAI) to determine if abductees who participated in a reintegration program had different mental status from those who self-reintegrated. RESULTS: From 129 young abductees, 56 (43.4%) had participated in a reintegration program. Participants had been abducted between 1988-2010 for an average length of one year, the median age of abduction was 13 years (IQR:11-14) with escaping (76.6%), being released (15.6%), and rescued (7.0%) being the most common manner of departure from the LRA. Traditional cleansing ceremonies (67.8%) were the most commonly accessed support followed by receiving amnesty (37.5%), going to a reception centre (28.6%) or receiving a reinsertion package (12.5%). Between group comparisons indicated that the mental health status of abductees who accessed >/=1 reintegration program were not significantly different from those who self-reintegrated (p > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Over 40% of female abductees in this sample had accessed a reintegration program, however significant differences in mental health were not observed between those who accessed a reintegration program and those who self-reintegrated. The successful reintegration of combatants and abductees into their recipient community is a complex process and these results support the need for gender-specific services and ongoing evaluation of reintegration programming.
Muldoon, Katherine A Muzaaya, Godfrey Betancourt, Theresa S Ajok, Mirriam Akello, Monica Petruf, Zaira Nguyen, Paul Baines, Erin K Shannon, Kate eng England 2014/05/24 06:00 Confl Health. 2014 May 7;8:5. doi: 10.1186/1752-1505-8-5. eCollection 2014.
Keywords: Abduction; Mental Health; Northern Uganda; Reintegration; Women

Epigenetic signatures of intergenerational exposure to violence in three generations of Syrian refugees - Mulligan, Connie J.; Quinn, Edward B.; Hamadmad, Dima; Dutton, Christopher L.; Nevell, Lisa; Binder, Alexandra M.; Panter-Brick, Catherine; Dajani, Rana (Scientific Reports, 2025)
Keywords: Human genome; Migrants; Refugees; Syria

Parenting in times of war: supporting caregivers and children in crisis - Murphy, K.; Maignant, S.; Boone, L.; Smith, S. (Early Childhood Matters, 2015)
Humanitarian interventions to support and guide parents and caregivers in times of war can mitigate the negative effects of violence and chaos on children and promote their resilience and development. This article highlights recent findings from the International Rescue Committee’s parenting programmes in Syria, underscoring the importance of such programmes not only in strengthening caregiving practices but also in addressing the psychological needs of parents
Keywords: Child Development; parental behaviors; resilience; violence exposure

Men and maternal health: The dilemma of short-lived male involvement strategies in Uganda - Mwije, S. (Health Care for Women International, 2018)

Advancing equity in early childhood education. NAEYC position statement - NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children NAEYC, 2019)
Keywords: Early childhood education

Effect of participatory women's groups and counselling through home visits on children's linear growth in rural eastern India (CARING trial): a cluster-randomised controlled trial - Nair, Nirmala; Tripathy, Prasanta; Sachdev, H S; Pradhan, Hemanta; Bhattacharyya, Sanghita; Gope, Rajkumar; Gagrai, Sumitra; Rath, Shibanand; Rath, Suchitra; Sinha, Rajesh; Roy, Swati Sarbani; Shewale, Suhas; et al. (The Lancet Global Health, 2017)

Implementation and scale-up of psycho-trauma centers in a post-conflict area: a case study of a private-public partnership in northern Uganda - Nakimuli-Mpungu, E.; Alderman, S.; Kinyanda, E.; Allden, K.; Betancourt, T. S.; Alderman, J. S.; Pavia, A.; Okello, J.; Nakku, J.; Adaku, A.; Musisi, S. (PLoS Med, 2013)
As one article in an ongoing series on Global Mental Health Practice, Etheldreda Nakimuli-Mpungu and colleagues describe a private-public partnership that implemented and scaled psycho-trauma centers in Northern Uganda.
Nakimuli-Mpungu, Etheldreda Alderman, Stephen Kinyanda, Eugene Allden, Kathleen Betancourt, Theresa S Alderman, Jeffrey S Pavia, Alison Okello, James Nakku, Juliet Adaku, Alex Musisi, Seggane eng MC_U950088495/Medical Research Council/United Kingdom Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't 2013/04/24 06:00 PLoS Med. 2013;10(4):e1001427. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001427. Epub 2013 Apr 16.
Keywords: *Public-Private Sector Partnerships; *Warfare; Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Child; Child, Preschool; Depression/*therapy; Female; Humans; Male; Mental Health Services/*organization & administration; Middle Aged; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/*therapy; Trauma Centers/organization & administration; Uganda; Young Adult

Social Science–Based Pathways to Reduce Social Inequality in Youth Outcomes and Opportunities at Scale - Nalani, Andrew; Yoshikawa, Hirokazu; Carter, Prudence L. (Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 2021)
Keywords: inequality; opportunity; reduction; scale; youth

Investing in Young Children Globally for Peaceful Societies: Proceedings of a Joint Workshop - NationalAcademiesofSciencesEngineeringMedicine (Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally (iYCG), UNICEF, King Abdulla Bin Abdulaziz International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, 2016)

Moving from Evidence to Implementation of Early Childhood Programs: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief - NationalAcademiesofSciencesEngineeringMedicine (Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally, 2016)

Eager to Learn: Educating Our Preschoolers - NationalResearchCouncil (The National Academies Press, 2000)
Clearly babies come into the world remarkably receptive to its wonders. Their alertness to sights, sounds, and even abstract concepts makes them inquisitive explorers--and learners--every waking minute. Well before formal schooling begins, children's early experiences lay the foundations for their later social behavior, emotional regulation, and literacy. Yet, for a variety of reasons, far too little attention is given to the quality of these crucial years. Outmoded theories, outdated facts, and undersized budgets all play a part in the uneven quality of early childhood programs throughout our country. What will it take to provide better early education and care for our children between the ages of two and five? Eager to Learn explores this crucial question, synthesizing the newest research findings on how young children learn and the impact of early learning. Key discoveries in how young children learn are reviewed in language accessible to parents as well as educators: findings about the interplay of biology and environment, variations in learning among individuals and children from different social and economic groups, and the importance of health, safety, nutrition and interpersonal warmth to early learning. Perhaps most significant, the book documents how very early in life learning really begins. Valuable conclusions and recommendations are presented in the areas of the teacher-child relationship, the organization and content of curriculum, meeting the needs of those children most at risk of school failure, teacher preparation, assessment of teaching and learning, and more. The book discusses: Evidence for competing theories, models, and approaches in the field and a hard look at some day-to-day practices and activities generally used in preschool. The role of the teacher, the importance of peer interactions, and other relationships in the child's life. Learning needs of minority children, children with disabilities, and other special groups. Approaches to assessing young children's learning for the purposes of policy decisions, diagnosis of educational difficulties, and instructional planning. Preparation and continuing development of teachers. Eager to Learn presents a comprehensive, coherent picture of early childhood learning, along with a clear path toward improving this important stage of life for all children.
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9745/eager-to-learn-educating-our-preschoolers
Keywords: Education

Differential patterns of whole-genome DNA methylation in institutionalized children and children raised by their biological parents. - Naumova, Oksana Yu; Lee, Maria; Koposov, Roman; Szyf, Moshe; Dozier, Mary; Grigorenko, Elena L (Dev Psychopathol, 2012)
Previous studies with nonhuman species have shown that animals exposed to early adversity show differential DNA methylation relative to comparison animals. The current study examined differential methylation among 14 children raised since birth in institutional care and 14 comparison children raised by their biological parents. Blood samples were taken from children in middle childhood. Analysis of whole-genome methylation patterns was performed using the Infinium HumanMethylation27 BeadChip assay (Illumina), which contains 27,578 CpG sites, covering approximately 14,000 gene promoters. Group differences were registered, which were characterized primarily by greater methylation in the institutionalized group relative to the comparison group, with most of these differences in genes involved in the control of immune response and cellular signaling systems, including a number of crucial players important for neural communication and brain development and functioning. The findings suggest that patterns of differential methylation seen in nonhuman species with altered maternal care are also characteristic of children who experience early maternal separation.
Keywords: Child; Child, Institutionalized; CpG Islands; DNA Methylation; Female; Genome, Human; Humans; Male; Maternal Deprivation; Promoter Regions, Genetic

The 12 core concepts: Concepts for understanding for understanding traumatic stress responses in children and families - NCTSN (2012)
Keywords: children; Family; traumatic stress

A Study of Education and Resilience in Kenya’s Arid and Semi-Arid Lands - D. Ndung’u; P. Scott-Villiers; A. Scott-Villiers; N. Kabala; M. Kullu (UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO), 2015)

Investment in Humans, Technological Diffusion, and Economic Growth - Nelson, Richard R.; Phelps, Edmund S. (The American Economic Review, 1966)

Youth mental health after civil war: the importance of daily stressors - Newnham, E. A.; Pearson, R. M.; Stein, A.; Betancourt, T. S. (Br J Psychiatry, 2015)
BACKGROUND: Recent evidence suggests that post-conflict stressors in addition to war trauma play an important role in the development of psychopathology. AIMS: To investigate whether daily stressors mediate the association between war exposure and symptoms of post-traumatic stress and depression among war-affected youth. METHOD: Standardised assessments were conducted with 363 Sierra Leonean youth (26.7% female, mean age 20.9, s.d. = 3.38) 6 years post-war. RESULTS: The extent of war exposures was significantly associated with post-traumatic stress symptoms (P<0.05) and a significant proportion was explained by indirect pathways through daily stressors (0.089, 95% CI 0.04-0.138, P<0.001). In contrast, there was little evidence for an association from war exposure to depression scores (P = 0.127); rather any association was explained via indirect pathways through daily stressors (0.103, 95% CI 0.048-0.158, P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Among war-affected youth, the association between war exposure and psychological distress was largely mediated by daily stressors, which have potential for modification with evidence-based intervention.
Newnham, Elizabeth A Pearson, Rebecca M Stein, Alan Betancourt, Theresa S eng 097822/Z/11/ZR/Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2014/12/17 06:00 Br J Psychiatry. 2015 Feb;206(2):116-21. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.114.146324. Epub 2014 Dec 11.
Keywords: *Warfare; Adolescent; Depression/complications/*psychology; Female; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Models, Statistical; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/complications/*psychology; Stress, Psychological/complications/*psychology; Young Adult

The Youth Readiness Intervention for war-affected youth - Newnham, E. A.; McBain, R. K.; Hann, K.; Akinsulure-Smith, A. M.; Weisz, J.; Lilienthal, G. M.; Hansen, N.; Betancourt, T. S. (J Adolesc Health, 2015)
PURPOSE: Mental disorders are among the largest contributors to the global burden of disease. Since the cessation of the Sierra Leonean civil war in 2002, there have been few mental health resources available for war-affected youth. Co-occurring psychological problems are commonly reported by youth in the post-conflict setting, suggesting a need for evidence-based interventions that cater to comorbid psychological difficulties. This feasibility study outlines the implementation and evaluation of a mixed-methods approach for developing and piloting a culturally grounded group mental health treatment-the Youth Readiness Intervention (YRI)-for war-affected Sierra Leonean youth. METHODS: Participating youth (N = 32; 50% female; ages, 15-24 years) were allocated to one of four gender- and age-stratified groups, facilitated by gender-matched Sierra Leonean interventionists. The intervention comprised adapted cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to address issues pertinent to war-affected youth. Analyses comprised assessments of reliable symptom change, mental health, functional adaptation, and interventionist fidelity outcomes. RESULTS: The YRI was found to be acceptable, feasible and associated with reliable changes in internalizing and externalizing symptoms and improvements in functional impairments and emotion regulation (mean effect size, d = .64). CONCLUSIONS: Youth struggling with the mental health consequences of past trauma due to war merit special attention. The YRI presents a feasible and acceptable intervention for use in this low resource setting. A randomized controlled trial is planned to further test intervention effectiveness and scalability.
Newnham, Elizabeth A McBain, Ryan K Hann, Katrina Akinsulure-Smith, Adeyinka M Weisz, John Lilienthal, Grace M Hansen, Nathan Betancourt, Theresa S eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't 2015/05/25 06:00 J Adolesc Health. 2015 Jun;56(6):606-11. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2015.01.020.
Keywords: Adolescent; Adult; Anxiety/etiology/therapy; Cognitive Therapy/*methods; Depression/etiology/therapy; Feasibility Studies; Female; Humans; Male; Mental Health; Pilot Projects; Post-conflict; Psychotherapy intervention; Sierra Leone; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/etiology/psychology/*therapy; War Exposure/*adverse effects; War-affected; Young Adult; youth

Risk and protective factors for suicidal ideation and behaviour in Rwandan children - Ng, L. C.; Kirk, C. M.; Kanyanganzi, F.; Fawzi, M. C.; Sezibera, V.; Shema, E.; Bizimana, J. I.; Cyamatare, F. R.; Betancourt, T. S. (Br J Psychiatry, 2015)
BACKGROUND: Suicide is a leading cause of death for young people. Children living in sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV rates are disproportionately high, may be at increased risk. AIMS: To identify predictors, including HIV status, of suicidal ideation and behaviour in Rwandan children aged 10-17. METHOD: Matched case-control study of 683 HIV-positive, HIV-affected (seronegative children with an HIV-positive caregiver), and unaffected children and their caregivers. RESULTS: Over 20% of HIV-positive and affected children engaged in suicidal behaviour in the previous 6 months, compared with 13% of unaffected children. Children were at increased risk if they met criteria for depression, were at high-risk for conduct disorder, reported poor parenting or had caregivers with mental health problems. CONCLUSIONS: Policies and programmes that address mental health concerns and support positive parenting may prevent suicidal ideation and behaviour in children at increased risk related to HIV.
Ng, Lauren C Kirk, Catherine M Kanyanganzi, Frederick Fawzi, Mary C Smith Sezibera, Vincent Shema, Evelyne Bizimana, Justin I Cyamatare, Felix R Betancourt, Theresa S eng P30 AI060354/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/ R34 MH084679/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ 1K01MH07724601/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/ Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2015/06/06 06:00 Br J Psychiatry. 2015 Sep;207(3):262-8. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.114.154591. Epub 2015 Jun 4.
Keywords: *Suicidal Ideation; Adolescent; Caregivers/psychology; Case-Control Studies; Child; Conduct Disorder/epidemiology/psychology; Depressive Disorder/epidemiology/psychology; Female; HIV Infections/epidemiology/*psychology; HIV Seronegativity; Humans; Male; Mental Health; Parenting/psychology; protective factors; Risk Factors; Rwanda/epidemiology; Social Support; Stereotyping

I am a child! Four steps for protecting children’s rights in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and in the Global Compact on Refugees - NGOCommitteeMigration (NGO Committee on Migration, 2018)
Keywords: birth registration; child rights; global compact; Migrant children; refugee children

Caregiving Strategies for Reducing Aggression and Violence in At-risk Mothers and their Babies - Nicholson, Diana; Artz, Sibylle (Child and Youth Care Forum, 2006)

One Family at a Time: A Prevention Program for At-Risk Parents - Nicholson, Bonnie; Anderson, Michelle; Fox, Robert; Brenner, Viktor (Journal of Counseling & Development, 2002)

Risk of childhood psychiatric disorders in children of refugee parents with post-traumatic stress disorder: a nationwide, register-based, cohort study - Back Nielsen, Maj; Carlsson, Jessica; Køster Rimvall, Martin; Petersen, Jørgen Holm; Norredam, Marie (The Lancet Public Health, 2019)
Keywords: children of refugees; parental post-traumatic stress disorder; PTSD; Refugees

The long-term health consequences of child physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect: a systematic review and meta-analysis - Norman, R. E.; Byambaa, M.; De, R.; Butchart, A.; Scott, J.; Vos, T. (PLoS Med, 2012)
BACKGROUND: Child sexual abuse is considered a modifiable risk factor for mental disorders across the life course. However the long-term consequences of other forms of child maltreatment have not yet been systematically examined. The aim of this study was to summarise the evidence relating to the possible relationship between child physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect, and subsequent mental and physical health outcomes. METHODS AND FINDINGS: A systematic review was conducted using the Medline, EMBASE, and PsycINFO electronic databases up to 26 June 2012. Published cohort, cross-sectional, and case-control studies that examined non-sexual child maltreatment as a risk factor for loss of health were included. All meta-analyses were based on quality-effects models. Out of 285 articles assessed for eligibility, 124 studies satisfied the pre-determined inclusion criteria for meta-analysis. Statistically significant associations were observed between physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect and depressive disorders (physical abuse [odds ratio (OR) = 1.54; 95% CI 1.16-2.04], emotional abuse [OR = 3.06; 95% CI 2.43-3.85], and neglect [OR = 2.11; 95% CI 1.61-2.77]); drug use (physical abuse [OR = 1.92; 95% CI 1.67-2.20], emotional abuse [OR = 1.41; 95% CI 1.11-1.79], and neglect [OR = 1.36; 95% CI 1.21-1.54]); suicide attempts (physical abuse [OR = 3.40; 95% CI 2.17-5.32], emotional abuse [OR = 3.37; 95% CI 2.44-4.67], and neglect [OR = 1.95; 95% CI 1.13-3.37]); and sexually transmitted infections and risky sexual behaviour (physical abuse [OR = 1.78; 95% CI 1.50-2.10], emotional abuse [OR = 1.75; 95% CI 1.49-2.04], and neglect [OR = 1.57; 95% CI 1.39-1.78]). Evidence for causality was assessed using Bradford Hill criteria. While suggestive evidence exists for a relationship between maltreatment and chronic diseases and lifestyle risk factors, more research is required to confirm these relationships. CONCLUSIONS: This overview of the evidence suggests a causal relationship between non-sexual child maltreatment and a range of mental disorders, drug use, suicide attempts, sexually transmitted infections, and risky sexual behaviour. All forms of child maltreatment should be considered important risks to health with a sizeable impact on major contributors to the burden of disease in all parts of the world. The awareness of the serious long-term consequences of child maltreatment should encourage better identification of those at risk and the development of effective interventions to protect children from violence.
1549-1676 Norman, Rosana E Byambaa, Munkhtsetseg De, Rumna Butchart, Alexander Scott, James Vos, Theo Journal Article Meta-Analysis Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Review Systematic Review United States PLoS Med. 2012;9(11):e1001349. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001349. Epub 2012 Nov 27.
Keywords: *Cost of Illness; *Life Style; *Mental Health; Adolescent; Adult; Child; Child Abuse/*psychology; Chronic Disease/*epidemiology/*psychology; Humans; Risk Assessment; Risk Factors; Time Factors

The 4Rs Framework: Analyzing education’s contributions to sustainable peacebuilding with social justice in conflict-affected contexts - Novelli, M.; Lopes Cardozo, M. T. A.; Smith, A. (J Educ Emergencies, 2016)
This paper lays out a theoretical and analytical framework for researching and reflecting on the peacebuilding role of education in conflict-affected contexts. The 4Rs framework recognizes that working toward “positive peace” (Galtung 1976, 1990) requires working toward peace with social justice and reconciliation, challenging dominant “security-first” and “liberal peace” models, and gaining a better understanding of how education might support these processes in building sustainable and peaceful postconflict societies. The 4Rs framework combines dimensions of recognition, redistribution, representation, and reconciliation to explore what sustainable peacebuilding might look like through a social justice lens. The paper addresses the cultural translation of these concepts, highlighting the need for locally embedded interpretations. Rather than a fixed theoretical model, the 4Rs approach is designed as a heuristic device that promotes a dialogue among key stakeholders on the dilemmas and challenges in the field of education in emergencies. We highlight the application of a 4Rs framework through a recent case study of Myanmar, which demonstrates both the interrelated connections and the tensions between the different “Rs.” Finally, we reflect on the challenges and limitations of the approach, and the tasks ahead.
Keywords: Education and Conflict; Peacebuilding and Education; Social Justice

The United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty - Nowak, M. (United Nations, 2019)
Keywords: child rights; detained children; violence against children

Nurturing care for children living in humanitarian settings - NurturingCare (Nurturing Care for Early Childhood Development, 2020)
Keywords: early childhood development; Humanitarianism; nurturing care

The power of media in peacebuilding - Nusseibeh, Lucy (Pathways to peace: The transformative power of children and families, 2014)
Given the complexity and intractability of present-day conflicts, this chapter discusses the potential role that positive media can play in peacebuilding. Problems associated with group identity are examined and the potential for media to strengthen issues surrounding the core identity (self-esteem and self-worth) of an individual is analyzed. The view is taken that educational media can enable individuals as well as large groups (nation, tribe) to become less vulnerable to malevolent manipulation. Examples from Palestine and Northern Ireland are presented to demonstrate the effect that age-appropriate educational media has on the building of secure attachment and prosocial behavior in young children. It is suggested that age-appropriate educational media can also promote global citizenship. Consideration is given to how media programs for children can be reinforced by programs for parents/caregivers and communities, and recommendations are offered on how these might be expanded. To achieve maximum effect, these programs are reliant on input from international and academic communities. A model is presented to illustrate how groups can progress from an existence marked by active conflict (where large group identity is under threat) to one of peaceful coexistence (where groups are connected and relate with mutual respect), and the role that media can play in this transition.
Keywords: attachment; educational media; global citizenship; group identity; peacebuilding

Early-Life Adversity and Physical and Emotional Health Across the Lifespan: A Neuroimmune Network Hypothesis - Nusslock, R.; Miller, G. E. (Biol Psychiatry, 2016)
Children who experience chronic stressors are vulnerable to emotional and physical health problems across the lifespan. This phenomenon raises questions for scientists and clinicians alike. How does adversity get under the skin of the developing child? Through what mechanisms does it confer vulnerability to a heterogeneous set of mental and physical illnesses? And how does it instantiate risk across different life stages, engendering vulnerability to conditions that develop shortly after stressor exposure-like depression-and conditions that manifest decades later, like heart disease? Although answers to these questions have started to emerge, research has typically focused on single diseases or organ systems. To understand the plethora of health problems associated with childhood adversity, we argue that the field needs a second generation of research that recognizes multidirectional transactions among biological systems. To help facilitate this process, we propose a neuroimmune network hypothesis as a heuristic framework for organizing knowledge from disparate literatures and as a springboard for generating integrative research. Drawing on existing data, we argue that early-life adversity amplifies crosstalk between peripheral inflammation and neural circuitries subserving threat-related, reward-related, and executive control-related processes. This crosstalk results in chronic low-grade inflammation, thereby contributing to adiposity, insulin resistance, and other predisease states. In the brain, inflammatory mediators act on cortico-amygdala threat and cortico-basal ganglia reward, circuitries in a manner that predisposes individuals to self-medicating behaviors like smoking, drug use, and consumption of high-fat diets. Acting in concert with inflammation, these behaviors accelerate the pathogenesis of emotional and physical health problems.
1873-2402 Nusslock, Robin Miller, Gregory E P30 DA027827/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/United States R01 HL122328/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States R01 MH100117/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/United States Journal Article Review Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural United States Biol Psychiatry. 2016 Jul 1;80(1):23-32. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.05.017. Epub 2015 Jun 4.
Keywords: *Adult Survivors of Child Adverse Events; *Child Abuse; *depression; *Heart disease; *Inflammation; *Maltreatment; *Neuroimmunomodulation/immunology; *Poverty; *Reward; *Stress; Adult; Child; Executive Function/*physiology; Fear/*physiology; Humans; Inflammation/*complications/etiology/immunology/metabolism; Stress, Psychological/*complications/immunology/metabolism

A pilot study of a family focused, psychosocial intervention with war-exposed youth at risk of attack and abduction in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo - O'Callaghan, P.; Branham, L.; Shannon, C.; Betancourt, T. S.; Dempster, M.; McMullen, J. (Child Abuse Negl, 2014)
Rural communities in the Haut-Uele Province of northern Democratic Republic of Congo live in constant danger of attack and/or abduction by units of the Lord's Resistance Army operating in the region. This pilot study sought to develop and evaluate a community-participative psychosocial intervention involving life skills and relaxation training and Mobile Cinema screenings with this war-affected population living under current threat. 159 war-affected children and young people (aged 7-18) from the villages of Kiliwa and Li-May in north-eastern DR Congo took part in this study. In total, 22% of participants had been abduction previously while 73% had a family member abducted. Symptoms of post-traumatic stress reactions, internalising problems, conduct problems and pro-social behaviour were assessed by blinded interviewers at pre- and post-intervention and at 3-month follow-up. Participants were randomised (with an accompanying caregiver) to 8 sessions of a group-based, community-participative, psychosocial intervention (n=79) carried out by supervised local, lay facilitators or a wait-list control group (n=80). Average seminar attendance rates were high: 88% for participants and 84% for caregivers. Drop-out was low: 97% of participants were assessed at post-intervention and 88% at 3 month follow-up. At post-test, participants reported significantly fewer symptoms of post-traumatic stress reactions compared to controls (Cohen's d=0.40). At 3 month follow up, large improvements in internalising symptoms and moderate improvements in pro-social scores were reported, with caregivers noting a moderate to large decline in conduct problems among the young people. Trial Registration clinicalTrials.gov, Identifier: NCT01542398.
O'Callaghan, Paul Branham, Lindsay Shannon, Ciaran Betancourt, Theresa S Dempster, Martin McMullen, John eng Randomized Controlled Trial Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2014/03/19 06:00 Child Abuse Negl. 2014 Jul;38(7):1197-207. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2014.02.004. Epub 2014 Mar 15.
Keywords: *Social Behavior; *Warfare; Abduction; Adolescent; Child; Crime/*psychology; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Family Therapy/*methods; Family/*psychology; Female; Humans; Internalising symptoms; Male; Pilot Projects; Post-traumatic stress symptoms; Psychosocial; Rural Health; Treatment Outcome; Violence/psychology; War; youth

The effects of global severe privation on cognitive competence: extension and longitudinal follow-up. English and Romanian Adoptees Study Team. - O'Connor, T G; Rutter, M; Beckett, C; Keaveney, L; Kreppner, J M (Child Dev, 2000)
The current study extends previous research on a sample of children adopted into the United Kingdom following severe early deprivation and a comparison sample of nondeprived, within-country, early adoptees. We assessed 165 children adopted from Romania and 52 U.K. adoptees at age 6 years. Longitudinal data (at age 4 and 6 years) were available on 111 Romanian adoptees placed into U.K. homes before 24 months of age and on all U.K. adoptees. Results indicated that there was considerable catch-up among late-placed Romanian children from entry into the United Kingdom to age 6, but as a group they exhibited lower cognitive scores and general developmental impairment compared with earlier adopted Romanian children. In addition, the resilience suggested at the assessment at age 4 years was maintained longitudinally, but there was no further evidence of catch-up or recovery.
Keywords: Anthropometry; Child; Child Development; Child, Preschool; Cognition Disorders; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Male; Social Environment

DNA methylome variation in a perinatal nurse-visitation program that reduces child maltreatment: a 27-year follow-up - O'Donnell, K. J.; Chen, L.; MacIsaac, J. L.; McEwen, L. M.; Nguyen, T.; Beckmann, K.; Zhu, Y.; Chen, L. M.; Brooks-Gunn, J.; Goldman, D.; Grigorenko, E. L.; Leckman, J. F.; et al. (Transl Psychiatry, 2018)
This study reveals the influence of child maltreatment on DNA methylation across the genome and provides the first evidence that a psychosocial intervention program, the Nurse Family Partnership (NFP), which targets mothers at risk for abusive parenting, associates with variation in the DNA methylome in adult offspring. The 188 participants were born to women randomly assigned to control (n = 99) or nurse-visited intervention groups (n = 89) and provided blood samples and a diagnostic interview at age 27 years. Interindividual variation in the blood DNA methylome was described using principal components (PC) scores derived from principal component analysis and showed that the NFP program (PC10: p = 0.029) and a history of abuse/neglect (PC1: p = 0.029, PC2: p = 0.009) significantly associated with DNA methylome variation at 27 years of age independent of gender, ancestry, cellular heterogeneity, and a polygenic risk index for major psychiatric disorders. The magnitude of the association between child maltreatment and DNA methylation was reduced when accounting for lifestyle factors, including smoking. These findings reflect the sustained impact of both childhood adversity as well as intervention programs that target such adversity on the epigenome but highlight the need for prospective longitudinal studies of DNA methylome variation in the context of early intervention programs.
2158-3188 O'Donnell, Kieran J ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3935-1014 Chen, Li MacIsaac, Julia L McEwen, Lisa M ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0500-9173 Nguyen, Thao Beckmann, Katherine Zhu, Yuecai Chen, Lawrence Ming Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne Goldman, David Grigorenko, Elena L Leckman, James F Diorio, Josie Karnani, Neerja Olds, David L Holbrook, Joanna D Kobor, Michael S ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4140-1743 Meaney, Michael J Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't United States Transl Psychiatry. 2018 Jan 10;8(1):15. doi: 10.1038/s41398-017-0063-9.
Keywords: *DNA Methylation; *House Calls; *Maternal-Child Nursing; *Perinatal Care; Adolescent; Adult; Canada; Child Abuse/*prevention & control/psychology; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Humans; Mental Disorders/*genetics; Multifactorial Inheritance; Nurse-Patient Relations; Pregnancy; Prospective Studies; Risk Factors; Young Adult

Prenatal exposure to maternal depression, neonatal methylation of human glucocorticoid receptor gene (NR3C1) and infant cortisol stress responses. - Oberlander, Tim F; Weinberg, Joanne; Papsdorf, Michael; Grunau, Ruth; Misri, Shaila; Devlin, Angela M (Epigenetics, 2008)
BACKGROUND: In animal models, variations in early maternal care are associated with differences in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal(HPA) stress response in the offspring, mediated via changes in the epigenetic regulation of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) gene (Nr3c1) expression. OBJECTIVE: To study this in humans, relationships between prenatal exposure to maternal mood and the methylation status of a CpG-rich region in the promoter and exon 1F of the human GR gene (NR3C1) in newborns and HPA stress reactivity at age three months were examined. RESULTS: Prenatal exposure to increased third trimester maternal depressed/anxious mood was associated with increased methylation of NR3C1 at a predicted NGFI-A binding site. Increased NR3C1 methylation at this site was also associated with increased salivary cortisol stress responses at 3 months, controlling for prenatal SRI exposure, postnatal age and pre and postnatal maternal mood. METHODS: The methylation status of a CpG-rich region of the NR3C1 gene, including exon 1F, in genomic DNA from cord blood mononuclear cells was quantified by bisulfite pyrosequencing in infants of depressed mothers treated with a serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant (SRI) (n = 33), infants of depressed nontreated mothers (n = 13) and infants of non depressed/non treated mothers (n = 36). To study the functional implications of the newborn methylation status of NR3C1 in newborns, HPA function was assessed at three months using salivary cortisol obtained before and following a non noxious stressor and at a late afternoon basal time. CONCLUSIONS: Methylation status of the human NR3C1 gene in newborns is sensitive to prenatal maternal mood and may offer a potential epigenetic process that links antenatal maternal mood and altered HPA stress reactivity during infancy.
Keywords: Adult; Antidepressive Agents, Second-Generation; Base Sequence; CpG Islands; Depression; DNA Methylation; Exons; Female; Fetal Blood; Humans; Hydrocortisone; Hypothalamo-Hypophyseal System; Infant; Leukocytes, Mononuclear; Molecular Sequence Data; Mothers; Pituitary-Adrenal System; Pregnancy; Pregnancy Complications; Promoter Regions, Genetic; Receptors, Glucocorticoid; Serotonin Uptake Inhibitors

Impact of childhood abuse on suicide-related behavior: Analysis using marginal structural models - Obikane, E.; Shinozaki, T.; Takagi, D.; Kawakami, N. (J Affect Disord, 2018)
BACKGROUND: Childhood abuse is associated with adult suicidal behaviors, partially mediated by mental disorders. However, the direct effect of childhood abuse not mediated by mental disorders is uncertain because the same risk factors serve as mediators and confounders of mental disorders and suicidal behaviors. The aim of the study was to estimate the direct effect of childhood abuse not mediated by mental disorders on suicidal behaviors using marginal structural models. METHODS: We used cross-sectional data of Japanese adults in Tokyo and neighboring prefectures (The Japanese Study on Stratification, Health, Income, and Neighborhood). We developed a causal diagram of childhood abuse and suicidal behaviors, and defined exposures (childhood abuse), confounders (age, childhood social characteristics), mediators (mental disorders), risk factors (coping, smoking, alcohol consumption, education, physical health), and outcome (suicidal behaviors). We estimated the direct effect of childhood abuse according to sex using inverse-probability weighting at 2 points and compared to total and direct effects estimated by conventional regression models. RESULTS: Of 1776 male and 2016 female participants, childhood abuse showed significant total effects on suicidal behaviors. Physical abuse was associated with suicidal ideation (risk ratio: males 2.11 [95% confidence interval: 1.59-2.82], females 2.15 [1.69-2.72]), suicidal plan (risk ratio: males 2.18 [1.21-3.92], females 2.14 [1.24-3.74]), and suicidal attempt (risk ratio: males 2.11 [1.14-5.10], females 4.79 [2.93-7.83]) through direct effect. LIMITATIONS: Childhood abuse was measured according to self-report of the past experiences. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that childhood abuse is associated with adult suicidal behaviors through direct effects not mediated by mental disorders.
1573-2517 Obikane, Erika Shinozaki, Tomohiro Takagi, Daisuke Kawakami, Norito Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Netherlands J Affect Disord. 2018 Jul;234:224-230. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2018.02.034. Epub 2018 Feb 22.
Keywords: *Child Abuse; *Mental health, marginal structural model; *Suicidal behaviors; *Suicidal Ideation; *Suicide; Adaptation, Psychological; Adolescent; Adult; Adult Survivors of Child Abuse/psychology/*statistics & numerical data; Age of Onset; Child; Cross-Sectional Studies; Female; Humans; Male; Mental Disorders/*epidemiology/psychology; Middle Aged; Odds Ratio; Risk Factors; Suicide, Attempted/psychology/*statistics & numerical data; Tokyo

Programs for parents of infants and toddlers: recent evidence from randomized trials. - Olds, D. L.; Sadler, L.; Kitzman, H. (J Child Psychol Psychiatry, 2007)
Programs for parents of young children hold considerable promise for improving children's life-course trajectories and for reducing health and development problems and associated costs to government and society. To date, this promise has not been achieved. Fulfilling the potential of parenting interventions will require substantial improvements in current practice for developing and testing such programs. Intervention development will be improved if clinicians and investigators ground parenting interventions in theory and epidemiology; and carefully pilot them to ascertain program feasibility, participant engagement, and behavioral change prior to testing them in randomized trials. Studies of parenting interventions will be improved if they adhere to the highest standards for randomization; if they examine objectively measured outcomes with clear public health relevance; and if they minimize selection factors known to compromise the analysis of data. Policy and practice recommendations for parenting interventions will be improved if they are based upon replicated randomized controlled trials, if the interventions are tested with different populations living in different contexts, and if they are examined in dissemination studies before public investments are made in such programs. Procedures need to be developed to ensure that the essential elements of evidence-based parenting programs can be implemented reliably in a variety of practice settings so that they will produce their intended effects. To date, few programs have met these high programmatic and evidentiary standards, with the result that many large-scale policy initiatives for at-risk parents have failed. Evidence is accumulating, however, that some programs delivered by professionals, especially nurse home visiting programs for pregnant women and parents of young children, produce replicable effects on children's health and development, and that these programs can be reliably reproduced with different populations living in a variety of community settings.
Keywords: Child Abuse; Child Behavior Disorders; Child, Preschool; Community Health Nursing; Developmental Disabilities; Early Intervention (Education); Education; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Information Dissemination; Parent-Child Relations; Poverty; Pregnancy; Program Evaluation; Psychosocial Deprivation; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; Research Design; Risk Factors; Self-Help Groups; Social Welfare; United States

Long-term effects of nurse home visitation on children's criminal and antisocial behavior: 15-year follow-up of a randomized controlled trial - Olds, D.; Henderson, C. R., Jr.; Cole, R.; Eckenrode, J.; Kitzman, H.; Luckey, D.; Pettitt, L.; Sidora, K.; Morris, P.; Powers, J. (Jama, 1998)
CONTEXT: A program of home visitation by nurses has been shown to affect the rates of maternal welfare dependence, criminality, problems due to use of substances, and child abuse and neglect. However, the long-term effects of this program on children's antisocial behavior have not been examined. OBJECTIVE: To examine the long-term effects of a program of prenatal and early childhood home visitation by nurses on children's antisocial behavior. DESIGN: Fifteen-year follow-up of a randomized trial. Interviews were conducted with the adolescents and their biological mothers or custodial parents. SETTING: Semirural community in New York. PARTICIPANTS: Between April 1978 and September 1980, 500 consecutive pregnant women with no previous live births were recruited, and 400 were enrolled. A total of 315 adolescent offspring participated in a follow-up study when they were 15 years old; 280 (89%) were born to white mothers, 195 (62%) to unmarried mothers, 151 (48%) to mothers younger than 19 years, and 186 (59%) to mothers from households of low socioeconomic status at the time of registration during pregnancy. INTERVENTION: Families in the groups that received home visits had an average of 9 (range, 0-16) home visits during pregnancy and 23 (range, 0-59) home visits from birth through the child's second birthday. The control groups received standard prenatal and well-child care in a clinic. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Children's self-reports of running away, arrests, convictions, being sentenced to youth corrections, initiation of sexual intercourse, number of sex partners, and use of illegal substances; school records of suspensions; teachers' reports of children's disruptive behavior in school; and parents' reports of the children's arrests and behavioral problems related to the children's use of alcohol and other drugs. RESULTS: Adolescents born to women who received nurse visits during pregnancy and postnatally and who were unmarried and from households of low socioeconomic status (risk factors for antisocial behavior), in contrast with those in the comparison groups, reported fewer instances (incidence) of running away (0.24 vs 0.60; P = .003), fewer arrests (0.20 vs 0.45; P = .03), fewer convictions and violations of probation (0.09 vs 0.47; P<.001), fewer lifetime sex partners (0.92 vs 2.48; P= .003), fewer cigarettes smoked per day (1.50 vs 2.50; P= .10), and fewer days having consumed alcohol in the last 6 months (1.09 vs 2.49; P = .03). Parents of nurse-visited children reported that their children had fewer behavioral problems related to use of alcohol and other drugs (0.15 vs 0.34; P = .08). There were no program effects on other behavioral problems. CONCLUSIONS: This program of prenatal and early childhood home visitation by nurses can reduce reported serious antisocial behavior and emergent use of substances on the part of adolescents born into high-risk families.
Olds, D Henderson, C R Jr Cole, R Eckenrode, J Kitzman, H Luckey, D Pettitt, L Sidora, K Morris, P Powers, J 1-K05-MH01382-01/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/United States 96ASPE278A/PHS HHS/United States R01-MH49381/MH/NIMH NIH HHS/United States Clinical Trial Journal Article Randomized Controlled Trial Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S. United States JAMA. 1998 Oct 14;280(14):1238-44.
Keywords: *Community Health Nursing; *Maternal-Child Nursing; Adolescent; Adult; Antisocial Personality Disorder/epidemiology/*prevention & control; Crime/*prevention & control/statistics & numerical data; Female; Follow-Up Studies; House Calls; Humans; Incidence; Infant; New York/epidemiology; Pregnancy; Program Evaluation; Rural Health; Socioeconomic Factors

Prenatal and infancy home visitation by nurses: recent findings. - Olds, D. L.; Henderson, C. R.; Kitzman, H. J.; Eckenrode, J. J.; Cole, R. E.; Tatelbaum, R. C. (Future Child, 1999)
This article describes a 20-year program of research on the Nurse Home Visitation Program, a model in which nurses visit mothers beginning during pregnancy and continuing through their children's second birthdays to improve pregnancy outcomes, to promote children's health and development, and to strengthen families' economic self-sufficiency. The results of two randomized trials (one in Elmira, New York, and the second in Memphis, Tennessee) are summarized, and an ongoing trial in Denver, Colorado, is briefly described. Results of the Elmira and Memphis trials suggest the following: The program benefits the neediest families (low-income unmarried women) but provides little benefit for the broader population. Among low-income unmarried women, the program helps reduce rates of childhood injuries and ingestions that may be associated with child abuse and neglect, and helps mothers defer subsequent pregnancies and move into the workforce. Long-term follow-up of families in Elmira indicates that nurse-visited mothers were less likely to abuse or neglect their children or to have rapid successive pregnancies. Having fewer children enabled women to find work, become economically self-sufficient, and eventually avoid substance abuse and criminal behavior. Their children benefitted too. By the time the children were 15 years of age, they had had fewer arrests and convictions, smoked and drank less, and had had fewer sexual partners. The program produced few effects on children's development or on birth outcomes, except for children born to women who smoked cigarettes when they registered during pregnancy. The positive effects of the program on child abuse and injuries to children were most pronounced among mothers who, at registration, had the lowest psychological resources (defined as high levels of mental health symptoms, limited intellectual functioning, and little belief in their control of their lives). Generally, effects in Elmira were of greater magnitude and covered a broader range of outcomes than in Memphis, perhaps because of differences between the populations studied, community contexts, or a higher rate of turnover among home visitors in Memphis than in Elmira. The article concludes that the use of nurses as home visitors is key; that services should be targeted to the neediest populations, rather than being offered on a universal basis; that clinically tested methods of changing health and behavioral risks should be incorporated into program protocols; and that services must be implemented with fidelity to the model tested if program benefits found in scientifically controlled studies are to be reproduced as the program is replicated in new communities.
Keywords: Child Health Services; Child Welfare; Clinical Nursing Research; Community Health Nursing; Female; Home Care Services; House Calls; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Maternal Health Services; Pregnancy; Program Evaluation; United States

Evidentiary foundations of nurse-family partnership, - D. L. Olds (Nurse-Family Partnership, 2011)

Effects of home visits by paraprofessionals and by nurses: age 4 follow-up results of a randomized trial. - Olds, D. L.; Robinson, J.; Pettitt, L.; Luckey, D. W.; Holmberg, J.; Ng, R. K.; Isacks, K.; Sheff, K.; Henderson, C. R. (Pediatrics, 2004)
OBJECTIVE: To examine the effects of prenatal and infancy home visiting by paraprofessionals and by nurses from child age 2 through age 4 years. METHODS: We conducted, in public and private care settings in Denver, Colorado, a randomized, controlled trial with 3 arms, ie, control, paraprofessional visits, and nurse visits. Home visits were provided from pregnancy through child age 2 years. We invited 1178 consecutive, low-income, pregnant women with no previous live births to participate, and we randomized 735; 85% were unmarried, 47% Mexican American, 35% white non-Mexican American, 15% black, and 3% American Indian/Asian. Outcomes consisted of maternal reports of subsequent pregnancies, participation in education and work, use of welfare, marriage, cohabitation, experience of domestic violence, mental health, substance use, and sense of mastery; observations of mother-child interaction and the home environment; tests of children's language and executive functioning; and mothers' reports of children's externalizing behavior problems. RESULTS: Two years after the program ended, women who were visited by paraprofessionals, compared with control subjects, were less likely to be married (32.2% vs 44.0%) and to live with the biological father of the child (32.7% vs 43.1%) but worked more (15.13 months vs 13.38 months) and reported a greater sense of mastery and better mental health (standardized scores [mean = 100, SD = 10] of 101.25 vs 99.31 and 101.21 vs 99.16, respectively). Paraprofessional-visited women had fewer subsequent miscarriages (6.6% vs 12.3%) and low birth weight newborns (2.8% vs 7.7%). Mothers and children who were visited by paraprofessionals, compared with control subjects, displayed greater sensitivity and responsiveness toward one another (standardized score [mean = 100, SD = 10] of 100.92 vs 98.66) and, in cases in which the mothers had low levels of psychologic resources at registration, had home environments that were more supportive of children's early learning (score of 24.63 vs 23.35). Nurse-visited women reported greater intervals between the births of their first and second children (24.51 months vs 20.39 months) and less domestic violence (6.9% vs 13.6%) and enrolled their children less frequently in preschool, Head Start, or licensed day care than did control subjects. Nurse-visited children whose mothers had low levels of psychologic resources at registration, compared with control group counterparts, demonstrated home environments that were more supportive of children's early learning (score of 24.61 vs 23.35), more advanced language (score of 91.39 vs 86.73), superior executive functioning (score of 100.16 vs 95.48), and better behavioral adaptation during testing (score of 100.41 vs 96.66). There were no statistically significant effects of either nurse or paraprofessional visits on the number of subsequent pregnancies, women's educational achievement, use of substances, use of welfare, or children's externalizing behavior problems. CONCLUSIONS: Paraprofessional-visited mothers began to experience benefits from the program 2 years after the program ended at child age 2 years, but their first-born children were not statistically distinguishable from their control group counterparts. Nurse-visited mothers and children continued to benefit from the program 2 years after it ended. The impact of the nurse-delivered program on children was concentrated on children born to mothers with low levels of psychologic resources.
Keywords: African Continental Ancestry Group; Birth Intervals; Child Behavior; Child Development; Child, Preschool; Community Health Nursing; Community Health Workers; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Home Care Services; Humans; Infant; Male; Marital Status; Maternal Health Services; Mother-Child Relations; Outcome Assessment (Health Care); Pregnancy; Single Parent; Urban Population

Home visiting by paraprofessionals and by nurses: a randomized, controlled trial. - Olds, D. L.; Robinson, J.; O'Brien, R.; Luckey, D. W.; Pettitt, L. M.; Henderson, C. R.; Ng, R. K.; Sheff, K. L.; Korfmacher, J.; Hiatt, S.; Talmi, A. (Pediatrics, 2002)
OBJECTIVE: To examine the effectiveness of home visiting by paraprofessionals and by nurses as separate means of improving maternal and child health when both types of visitors are trained in a program model that has demonstrated effectiveness when delivered by nurses. METHODS: A randomized, controlled trial was conducted in public- and private-care settings in Denver, Colorado. One thousand one hundred seventy-eight consecutive pregnant women with no previous live births who were eligible for Medicaid or who had no private health insurance were invited to participate. Seven hundred thirty-five women were randomized to control, paraprofessional, or nurse conditions. Nurses completed an average of 6.5 home visits during pregnancy and 21 visits from birth to the children's second birthdays. Paraprofessionals completed an average of 6.3 home visits during pregnancy and 16 visits from birth to the children's second birthdays. The main outcomes consisted of changes in women's urine cotinine over the course of pregnancy; women's use of ancillary services during pregnancy; subsequent pregnancies and births, educational achievement, workforce participation, and use of welfare; mother-infant responsive interaction; families' home environments; infants' emotional vulnerability in response to fear stimuli and low emotional vitality in response to joy and anger stimuli; and children's language and mental development, temperament, and behavioral problems. RESULTS: Paraprofessional-visited mother-child pairs in which the mother had low psychological resources interacted with one another more responsively than their control-group counterparts (99.45 vs 97.54 standard score points). There were no other statistically significant paraprofessional effects. In contrast to their control-group counterparts, nurse-visited smokers had greater reductions in cotinine levels from intake to the end of pregnancy (259.0 vs 12.32 ng/mL); by the study child's second birthday, women visited by nurses had fewer subsequent pregnancies (29% vs 41%) and births (12% vs 19%); they delayed subsequent pregnancies for longer intervals; and during the second year after the birth of their first child, they worked more than women in the control group (6.83 vs 5.65 months). Nurse-visited mother-child pairs interacted with one another more responsively than those in the control group (100.31 vs 98.99 standard score points). At 6 months of age, nurse-visited infants, in contrast to their control-group counterparts, were less likely to exhibit emotional vulnerability in response to fear stimuli (16% vs 25%) and nurse-visited infants born to women with low psychological resources were less likely to exhibit low emotional vitality in response to joy and anger stimuli (24% vs 40% and 13% vs 33%). At 21 months, nurse-visited children born to women with low psychological resources were less likely to exhibit language delays (7% vs 18%); and at 24 months, they exhibited superior mental development (90.18 vs 86.20 Mental Development Index scores) than their control-group counterparts. There were no statistically significant program effects for the nurses on women's use of ancillary prenatal services, educational achievement, use of welfare, or their children's temperament or behavior problems. For most outcomes on which either visitor produced significant effects, the paraprofessionals typically had effects that were about half the size of those produced by nurses. CONCLUSIONS: When trained in a model program of prenatal and infancy home visiting, paraprofessionals produced small effects that rarely achieved statistical or clinical significance; the absence of statistical significance for some outcomes is probably attributable to limited statistical power to detect small effects. Nurses produced significant effects on a wide range of maternal and child outcomes.
Keywords: Female; House Calls; Humans; Infant; Infant Welfare; Infant, Newborn; Maternal Welfare; Maternal-Child Nursing; Outcome and Process Assessment (Health Care); Proportional Hazards Models; Regression Analysis

Timely sensory stimulation and early childhood development - Olusanya, B. O.; Sirimanna, T.; McPherson, B. (Lancet, 2017)
Olusanya, Bolajoko O Sirimanna, Tony McPherson, Bradley eng Letter England 2017/12/20 06:00 Lancet. 2017 Dec 16;390(10113):2626. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32410-8.

International Journal of Early Childhood - OMEP (2021)
Keywords: early childhood development (ECD); Early childhood education

Dignity under extreme duress: The moral and emotional landscape of local humanitarian workers in the Afghan-Pakistan border areas - P. A. Omidian; C. Panter-Brick (Medical Humanitarianism: Ethnographies of Practice, 2015)

The Effects of Armed Conflict on Educational Attainment and Inequality - C. Omoeva; R. Hatch; W. Moussa (Education Policy and Data Center, FHI 360, 2016)

Experiences of Fathers of Babies Admitted into a Neonatal Unit in a Tertiary Hospital in Port Harcourt, Nigeria - Opara, P. I.; Alinnor, E. A. (Journal of Advances in Medicine and Medical Research, 2019)
Keywords: experiences; Fathers; newborns; NICU

School Bullying: Changing the Problem by Changing the School - Orpinas, P.; Horne, A.M.; Staniszewski, D. (School Psychology Review, 2003)
This article describes the development and evaluation of a bullying prevention program in one large, public elementary school. The program, which was developed based on a collaborative model between school personnel and university consultants, included modification of the school environment, education of students, and training of teachers. To evaluate the program, all students completed an anonymous survey in the spring of 1998 (n = 541) and the spring of 1999 (n = 520). Among the younger children, a 40% reduction in the mean self-reported aggression and a 19% reduction in mean self-reported victimization were found. Among children in third through fifth grade, a 23% reduction in the mean reported victimization was observed, but no significant differences in aggression were found. This article proposes a model of translating theory and research of violence prevention into action.
Keywords: school bullying; violence prevention

Building resiliency in families with young children exposed to violence: The safe start initiative pilot study - Ortega, S.; Beauchemin, A.; Kaniskan, R.B. (Best Practice in Mental Health, 2008)
This study investigated the relationship between risk and protective factors among families with young children who have been exposed to violence and Safe Start treatment outcomes as measured by the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form. Three groups of clients receiving different interventions were studied over the course of two years to investigate changes in parental stress and parent-child interaction. The results suggest that the groups differed in number of needs and protective factors and that these differences were strong predictors of variation in Parenting Stress Index-Short Form scores. Based on this finding, we conclude that families with higher levels of stress require immediate attention and support in linking with services that promote resiliency by reducing parental stress.
Keywords: parental stress; Safe Start; violence exposure

Child Poverty and inequality: New Perspectives - Ortiz, I.; Daniels, L. M.; Engilbertsdottir, S.; UNICEF (UNICEF, 2012)
Keywords: child poverty; child rights; poverty and inequality

Child Povery and Inequality: new Perspectives - L. Ortiz (2012)

The development and evaluation of the intervention model for the Florida Infant Mental Health Pilot Program - Osofsky, Joy D.; Kronenberg, Mindy; Hammer, Jill Hayes; Lederman, Judge Cindy; Katz, Lynne; Adams, Sandra; Graham, Mimi; Hogan, Anne (Infant Mental Health Journal, 2007)

An intervention for relational and physical aggression in early childhood: A preliminary study - Ostrov, Jamie M.; Massetti, Greta M.; Stauffacher, Kirstin; Godleski, Stephanie A.; Hart, Katie C.; Karch, Kathryn M.; Mullins, Adam D.; Ries, Emily E. (Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 2009)

Primary prevention of parent-child conflict and abuse in Iranian mothers: a randomized-controlled trial. - Oveisi, Sonia; Ardabili, Hassan Eftekhare; Dadds, Mark R; Majdzadeh, Reza; Mohammadkhani, Parvaneh; Rad, Javad Alaqband; Shahrivar, Zahra (Child Abuse Negl, 2010)
OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess whether primary health care settings can be used to engage and provide a preventive intervention to mothers of young children. METHODS: Two hundred and twenty-four mothers who had come to the health centers were randomly assigned to either control group (CG: n=116) or intervention group (IG: n=108). Mothers in IG were taught about the role of parenting skills in families and common mistakes in parenting in 2-h-weekly sessions for 2 successive weeks. A parenting questionnaire was distributed to mothers at pre-test and after 8 weeks from the last training session. RESULTS: Compared to the CG, there were significant improvements from pre- to post-test in IG on measures of Parenting Scales (PS) total scores and Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scale-modified (CTSPCm) total scores. This improvement was maintained at 8-week follow up. CONCLUSION: The results support previous international studies that primary health care settings can be used successfully to engage and provide preventive interventions to mothers of young children. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Within health centers of Iran where parents routinely bring their children for monitoring of growth or vaccinating against some disease, mothers with a child aged between 2 and 6 years received a parent training. The program gave skills for managing misbehavior and preventing child behavior problems. Mothers reported that their behaviors improved from pre-treatment to post-treatment measured at 8-week follow up. The current work may lead decision-makers to organize this program for all of the health centers to train Iranian mothers.
Keywords: Adult; Child Abuse; Child Behavior Disorders; Child Health Services; Child, Preschool; Cross-Cultural Comparison; Education; Family Conflict; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Humans; Iran; Male; Primary Health Care; Socioeconomic Factors

Reframing the Early Childhood Curriculum: Educational Imperatives for the Future - Page, J. (Taylor & Francis, 2002)

Overview and implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - Pais, M. S.; Bissell, S. (Lancet, 2006)
Pais, Marta Santos Bissell, Susan eng England 2006/03/01 09:00 Lancet. 2006 Feb 25;367(9511):689-90. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(06)68267-6.
Keywords: Child; Child Advocacy/*legislation & jurisprudence; Humans; United Nations

Mental health and childhood adversities: a longitudinal study in Kabul, Afghanistan. - Panter-Brick, C.; Goodman, A.; Tol, W.; Eggerman, M. (J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry, 2011)
OBJECTIVE: To identify prospective predictors of mental health in Kabul, Afghanistan. METHOD: Using stratified random-sampling in schools, mental health and life events for 11-to 16-year-old students and their caregivers were assessed. In 2007, 1 year after baseline, the retention rate was 64% (n = 115 boys, 119 girls, 234 adults) with no evidence of selection bias. Self- and caregiver-rated child mental health (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire), depressive (Depression Self-Rating Scale), and posttraumatic stress (Child Revised Impact of Events Scale) symptoms and caregiver mental health (Self-Report Questionnaire) were assessed. Lifetime trauma and past-year traumatic, stressful, and protective experiences were assessed. RESULTS: With the exception of posttraumatic stress, one-year trajectories for all mental health outcomes showed significant improvement (p < .001). Family violence had a striking impact on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire data, raising caregiver-rated scores by 3.14 points (confidence interval [CI] 2.21-4.08) or half a standard deviation, and self-rated scores by 1.26 points (CI 0.50-2.03); past-year traumatic beatings independently raised self-rated scores by 1.85 points (CI 0.03-3.66). A major family conflict raised depression scores by 2.75 points (CI 0.89-4.61), two thirds of a standard deviation, whereas improved family life had protective effects. Posttraumatic stress symptom scores, however, were solely contingent on lifetime trauma, with more than three events raising scores by 5.38 points (CI 1.76-9.00). CONCLUSIONS: Family violence predicted changes in mental health problems other than posttraumatic stress symptoms in a cohort that showed resilience to substantial socioeconomic and war-related stressors. The importance of prospectively identifying impacts of specific types of childhood adversities on mental health outcomes is highlighted to strengthen evidence on key modifiable factors for intervention in war-affected populations.
Keywords: Adolescent; Adult; Afghan Campaign 2001-; Afghanistan; Child; Cross-Sectional Studies; Depressive Disorder; Developing Countries; Domestic Violence; Family Conflict; Female; Humans; Life Change Events; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Mental Disorders; Personality Assessment; Psychometrics; Psychosocial Deprivation; Resilience, Psychological; Risk Factors; Social Environment; Socioeconomic Factors; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic

Violence, suffering, and mental health in Afghanistan: a school-based survey. - Panter-Brick, C.; Eggerman, M.; Gonzalez, V.; Safdar, S. (Lancet, 2009)
BACKGROUND: Studies in Afghanistan have shown substantial mental health problems in adults. We did a survey of young people (11-16 years old) in the country to assess mental health, traumatic experiences, and social functioning. METHODS: In 2006, we interviewed 1011 children, 1011 caregivers, and 358 teachers, who were randomly sampled in 25 government-operated schools within three purposively chosen areas (Kabul, Bamyan, and Mazar-e-Sharif municipalities). We assessed probable psychiatric disorder and social functioning in students with the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire multi-informant (child, parent, teacher) ratings. We also used the Depression Self-Rating Scale and an Impact of Events Scale. We assessed caregiver mental health with both international and culturally-specific screening instruments (Self-Reported Questionnaire and Afghan Symptom Checklist). We implemented a checklist of traumatic events to examine the exposure to, and nature of, traumatic experiences. We analysed risk factors for mental health and reports of traumatic experiences. FINDINGS: Trauma exposure and caregiver mental health were predictive across all child outcomes. Probable psychiatric ratings were associated with female gender (odds ratio [OR] 2.47, 95% CI 1.65-3.68), five or more traumatic events (2.58, 1.36-4.90), caregiver mental health (1.11, 1.08-1.14), and residence areas (0.29, 0.17-0.51 for Bamyan and 0.37, 0.23-0.57 for Mazar-e-Sharif vs Kabul). The same variables predicted symptoms of depression. Two thirds of children reported traumatic experiences. Symptoms of post-traumatic stress were associated with five or more traumatic events (3.07, 1.78-5.30), caregiver mental health (1.06, 1.02-1.09), and child age (1.19, 1.04-1.36). Children's most distressing traumatic experiences included accidents, medical treatment, domestic and community violence, and war-related events. INTERPRETATION: Young Afghans experience violence that is persistent and not confined to acts of war. Our study emphasises the value of school-based initiatives to address child mental health, and the importance of understanding trauma in the context of everyday forms of suffering, violence, and adversity. FUNDING: Wellcome Trust.
Keywords: Adolescent; Adult; Afghan Campaign 2001-; Afghanistan; Attitude to Health; Child; Child Welfare; Cross-Sectional Studies; Faculty; Female; Health Surveys; Humans; Life Change Events; Male; Mental Disorders; Mental Health; Parents; Questionnaires; Risk Factors; Schools; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic; Violence

Health, Risk, and Resilience: Interdisciplinary Concepts and Applications - Panter-Brick, C. (Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol 43Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol 43Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol 43, 2014)
Risk and resilience research articulates major explanatory frameworks regarding the persistence of health disparities. Specifically, scholars have advocated a sophisticated knowledge of risk, a more grounded understanding of resilience, and comprehensive and meaningful measurements of risk and resilience pathways across cultures. The goal is to operationalize research issues into sustainable health practice and equity-focused policy. This article synthesizes current understandings on risk and resilience from the lens of medical anthropology: It reviews key insights gained from the standpoint of cultural narratives, political economy, and life history theory, as well as current shortcomings. The emergent literature on health-related risk and resilience is breathing new life into collaboration and dialogue across diverse fields of research and policy.
Bb9la Times Cited:2 Cited References Count:84 Annual Review of Anthropology
Keywords: Child Development; child-development; conflict; context; culture; developmental origins; life history; mental-health; policy; political economy; prevention; public-health; Violence; youth

Resilience humanitarianism and peacebuilding - Panter-Brick, C.; Ungar, M. (Multisystemic resilience: Adaptation and transformation in contexts of change, 2021)
Keywords: crisis; culture; Health; humanitarian action; Interventions; partnerships; peacebuilding; political economy; structural resilience; transformation

Editorial Commentary: Resilience in child development--interconnected pathways to wellbeing. - Panter-Brick, C.; Leckman, J. F. (J Child Psychol Psychiatry, 2013)
Keywords: Child; Child Development; Child, Preschool; Cognition; Early Intervention (Education); Humans; Infant; Quality of Life; Resilience, Psychological; Social Adjustment

Conflict, violence, and health: setting a new interdisciplinary agenda - Panter-Brick, C. (Soc Sci Med, 2010)
Panter-Brick, Catherine eng Introductory England 2009/11/26 06:00 Soc Sci Med. 2010 Jan;70(1):1-6. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.10.022. Epub 2009 Nov 22.
Keywords: *Conflict (Psychology); *Health Status; *Violence; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Risk Factors

Trauma memories, mental health, and resilience: a prospective study of Afghan youth. - Panter-Brick, C.; Grimon, M.; Kalin, M.; Eggerman, M. (J Child Psychol Psychiatry, 2015)
BACKGROUND: Studies of war-affected youth have not yet examined how trauma memories relate to prospective changes in mental health and to subjective or social experiences. METHODS: We interviewed a gender-balanced, randomly selected sample of Afghan child-caregiver dyads (n = 331, two waves, 1 year apart). We assessed lifetime trauma with a Traumatic Event Checklist, past-year events with a checklist of risk and protective events, and several child mental health outcomes including posttraumatic distress (Child Revised Impact of Events Scale, CRIES) and depression. We examined the consistency of trauma recall over time, identified mental health trajectories with latent transition modeling, and assessed the predictors of posttraumatic distress and depression trajectories with multinomial logistic regressions. RESULTS: From baseline to follow-up, reports of lifetime trauma significantly changed (p ≤ 0.01). A third of the cohort reported no trauma exposure; only 10% identified the same event as their most distressing experience. We identified four CRIES trajectories: low or no distress (52%), rising distress (15%), declining distress (21%), and sustained high distress (12%). Youth with chronic posttraumatic distress were more likely to be girls (OR = 5.78, p ≤ 0.01), report more trauma exposure at baseline (OR = 1.55, p ≤ 0.05) and follow-up (OR = 5.96, p ≤ 0.01), and experience ongoing domestic violence (OR = 4.84, p ≤ 0.01). The risks of rising distress and sustained distress showed a steady increase for youth recalling up to four traumatic experiences. Depression and CRIES trajectories showed weak comorbidity. CONCLUSIONS: Memories of violent events are malleable, embedded in social experiences, and present heterogeneous associations with posttraumatic distress. Our study provides insights on resilience and vulnerability to multiple adverse childhood experiences, highlighting research and clinical implications for understanding trauma in conflict-affected youth.