Job Talk: Justin Parent | Clinical Area

Title: Family Stress & Child Development: A Focus on Mechanisms
Abstract:
Grounded in an ecological family systems approach to the study of developmental psychopathology, my program of research explores the mechanisms through which families transmit adaptive and maladaptive child behaviors with the goal of optimizing intervention outcomes. I have developed two interconnected lines of research focused on family system influences on child psychosocial development using multiple levels of analysis and measurement. First, I will present my research that utilizes a randomized controlled design to examine family stress mechanisms by which depressed parents transmit risk for the development of psychopathology to their children. Second, I will present my research on the longitudinal influence of parental mindfulness on family health and child psychosocial well-being. Both of these areas use family systems as a model to guide testing mechanisms with the overarching goal of informing the development of preventative intervention programs for at-risk families and children across diverse contexts. Lastly, I will present exciting new research that includes epigenetic processes that modulate gene expression as a new level of analysis to the study of family stress and developmental psychopathology.