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By examining how economic insecurity as a non-medical factor impacts health and can lead to involvement with child protective services, we provide a view into the shortcomings of our social [...]

Young people at the intersection of child welfare and immigration face significant challenges to successfully transitioning to adulthood and independence from foster care. This transition is made even more difficult [...]

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is frequently under-diagnosed in maltreated samples. Protective services information is critical for obtaining complete trauma histories and determining whether to survey PTSD symptoms in maltreated children. In the current study, without protective services information to supplement parent and child report, diagnosing PTSD was missed in a significant proportion of the cases. Collaboration between mental health professionals and protective service workers is critical in determining psychiatric diagnoses and treatment needs of children involved with the child welfare system., Diagnosing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) requires a history of witnessing or experiencing a life-threatening or otherwise serious traumatic event. The criteria for PTSD are outlined in Table 1 (American Psychiatric [...]

In this study, measures of the quality and availability of social supports were found to moderate risk for depression associated with a history of maltreatment and the presence of the short (s) allele of the serotonin transporter gene promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR). The present investigation (i) replicates research in adults showing that 5-HTTLPR variation moderates the development of depression after stress, (ii) extends the finding to children, and (iii) demonstrates the ability of social supports to further moderate risk for depression. Maltreated children with the s/s genotype and no positive supports had the highest depression ratings, scores that were twice as high as the non-maltreated comparison children with the same genotype. However, the presence of positive supports reduced risk associated with maltreatment and the s/s genotype, such that maltreated children with this profile had only minimal increases in their depression scores. These findings are consistent with emerging preclinical and clinical data suggesting that the negative sequelae associated with early stress are not inevitable. Risk for negative outcomes may be modified by both genetic and environmental factors, with the quality and availability of social supports among the most important environmental factors in promoting resiliency in maltreated children, even in the presence of a genotype expected to confer vulnerability for psychiatric disorder. child maltreatment | gene-by-environment interaction

Influential role of peers in weight-related cognition and health behaviors of adolescent girls and boys is analyzed.