Dandelion children: Protective factors among children with alcohol misusing parents
Information
Period
2020
Funder
Systembolaget
Amount
€ 33 200
Project members
- Ylva B Almquist | Stockholm University (PI)
- Nina-Katri Gustafsson | Stockholm University
- Lisa Berg | Stockholm University
- Lauren Bishop | Stockholm University
Description
Growing up with parents who misuses alcohol increases the risks of mental and physical health problems. These risks tend to persist over time, contributing to the persistence of health inequalities. However, a significant number of boys and girls who experience alcohol misuse in the family manage relatively well later in life. Despite the potential for increased understanding of what makes these children ‘resilient’ to shape various types of interventions, research in this area has been limited. The recently updated data from the Stockholm Birth Cohort Multigenerational Study (SBC Multigen), which follows a cohort of 14,608 men and women prospectively from birth to retirement age (1953-2018), offers a unique opportunity to deepen the understanding of the ways in which risk and resilience processes can link exposure to parental alcohol abuse with health outcomes over the life course.
Key findings
While children whose parents misused alcohol are more likely to perform at or below average in school and have subsequently higher risks of misusing alcohol in adulthood, above-average performance among these children seems to reflect processes of resilience with the potential of breaking this association.
Four-way decomposition offers a viable approach to disentangle processes of interaction from mediation, representing a promising avenue for future longitudinal research.
Publications
Almquist, Y. B., Bishop, L., Gustafsson, N. K., & Berg, L. (2020). Intergenerational transmission of alcohol misuse: mediation and interaction by school performance in a Swedish birth cohort. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 74(7), 598-604.