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Parent-Adolescent Relationships and Long-Term Health
A recent cohort study published in JAMA Network Open examined the impact of parent-adolescent relationships on young adults’ long-term health across all health domains, including sexual and mental health, substance abuse, and cardiovascular disease. The study aimed to overcome the limitations of earlier research that focused on short-term outcomes or used various strategies that made it challenging to identify specific characteristics for intervention strategies to target.
The Study
The researchers used data from the U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and conducted their analyses between February 2019 and November 2023. The study comprised 19,560 adolescents in the seventh to twelfth grades in the 1994-1995 academic year, all of whom completed Wave I. Of these, 15,701 completed Wave IV in 2008-2009, which the researchers used to evaluate adolescent health outcomes up to the third decade of life.
The study used regression models to evaluate associations between parent-adolescent relationship domains and health outcomes, accounting for covariates like gender, race, ethnicity, and parental academic expectations. The researchers also conducted a secondary analysis to measure relationships between participants’ self-reported characteristics of their relationship with their fathers and mothers.
Results
The study found that adolescents who reported loving and caring relationships with their parents enjoyed good overall health, were optimistic, and had quality romantic relationships in young adulthood. These young adults also reported having no depressive symptoms, stress, or substance dependence. Despite variabilities in measurement strategies, the adolescents’ perception of their relationship with their parents had long-lasting impacts on their health behaviors and outcomes.
The results suggested prioritizing inductive discipline in interventions focused on improving adolescents’ perceptions of their relationships with their parents. There should be a greater emphasis on engaging fathers in adolescents’ health through innovative strategies, such as mentoring fathers through mobile messaging. These intervention strategies should go beyond targeting early childhood and improve poor-quality relationships in early adolescence when needed.
Conclusions
Investments to improve parent-adolescent relationships might substantially improve the health of all young adults in the U.S across a wide range of health domains. More research is needed to examine relationships between parents and youths who belong to minorities based on their sexuality. Efforts to support parent-adolescent relationships must account for diversity in family relationships, as primary adult caregivers might look different across families.
