Implications of Adolescence for Adult Well-Being: 25 Years of Add Health Research

Long-term impact of adverse childhood experiences and perceived social support on depression trajectories

BACKGROUND

While the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on depression is well-documented, how ACEs, physical violence victimization, social support, and school belongingness altogether shape depression from adolescence to young adulthood remains unclear. This study aims to clarify these relations by tracing the trajectory of depression across this critical developmental period.

METHODS

We utilized a 14-year, four-wave dataset from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), including 5734 participants who were 7th to 12th graders at baseline (51.4 % females). Latent growth curve modeling (LGCM) was used to analyze the trajectory of depression from adolescence to young adulthood, assessing the impact of ACEs, physical violence victimization, social support, and school belongingness on this progression.

RESULTS

Results from the LGCM indicated that childhood maltreatment and physical violence victimization were positively associated with an increase in depression from adolescence to young adulthood. Conversely, social support and school belongingness showed a negative association with depression, indicating their protective effects over time. Gender was found to moderate these longitudinal associations, with females showing increased vulnerability to the negative relations between early stressful environments (i.e., childhood maltreatment and physical violence victimization) and depression. Conversely, they seemed to benefit more from school belongingness and social support in mitigating depression.

LIMITATIONS

The study variables were all self-reported and exhibited some issues with reliability.

CONCLUSION

Practitioners should implement gender-specific programs for the prevention and intervention of depression from adolescence through young adulthood.

New horizons in criminal legal data: creating a comprehensive archive

While criminal legal involvement is a structural determinant of health, both administrative and national longitudinal cohort data are collected and made available in a way that prevents a full understanding of this relationship. Administrative data are both collected and overseen by the same entity and are incomplete, delayed, and/or uninterpretable. Cohort data often only ask these questions to the most vulnerable, and do not include all types of criminal legal involvement, when this involvement occurs in someone's life, or family and community involvement. To achieve a more optimized data landscape and to facilitate population-level research on criminal legal involvement and health, (1) individual administrative level data must be made available and able to be linked across carceral systems, (2) a national data archive must be made to maintain and make criminal legal data available to researchers, and (3) a nationally representative, longitudinal study focused on those with criminal legal involvement is necessary. By beginning to critically think about how future data could be collated and collected, we can begin to provide more robust evidence around how the criminal legal system impacts the health of our society and, in turn, create policy reform.

Sexual Behavior and Health From Adolescence to Adulthood: Illustrative Examples of 25 Years of Research From Add Health

Due to its long-term longitudinal design, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) has provided numerous valuable insights into adolescent and young adult sexual behavior. Framed by a conceptual model of sexual behavior and health, I review research using Add Health data to study sexual behavior and health. In this paper, I review research examining both predictors (e.g., neighborhood, family, genetic, individual) and health outcomes (e.g., sexually transmitted infections, mental health) of sexual behavior in adolescents and young adults. Where possible, I focus on long-term longitudinal studies that make use of the unique strengths of the Add Health data. Existing Add Health research has provided considerable information about both the predictors and health consequences of adolescent and young adult sexual behavior. Factors ranging from neighborhoods to genetics predict whether adolescent and young adults engage in sexual behaviors. Findings on long-term outcomes of adolescent sexual behavior suggest that early sexual behavior predicts higher rates of sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy in young adulthood, but not long-term changes to mental health. Unique contributions of Add Health include the ability to examine multidimensional bio-ecological predictors of sexual behavior and to examine long-term effects of sexual behavior and how sexual behaviors and their correlates change across adolescence into adulthood. Future work can leverage these strengths, and in particular the long-term longitudinal nature of the data, to uncover new insights about the developmental course of sexual behavior and health.