Lilly Shanahan

University of Zurich | UZH · Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development & Psychology

Robust reward sensitivity may help preserve mental well‐being in the face of adversity and has been proposed as a key stress resilience factor. Here, we present a mobile health application, “Imager,” which targets reward sensitivity by training individuals to create mental images of future rewarding experiences. We conducted a two‐arm randomized co...

Objective Little is known about self-concept in adolescents with physical-mental comorbidity. This study investigated whether physical-mental comorbidity was associated with self-concept in adolescents and examined if adolescent age or sex moderated the association between physical-mental comorbidity and self-concept. Methods Study data were obtai...

This study assessed associations of actigraphy-assessed sleep with adiposity and serum cardiometabolic outcomes in emerging adults, and whether sex and race modified these associations. Data on 147 emerging adults (age = 19.4 ± 1.3 years; body mass index = 26.4 ± 7.0 kg m-2 ; 59% female; 65% White) from RIGHT Track Health were used. Actigraphy-base...

Objective: Digital mental health interventions delivered via smartphone-based apps effectively treat various conditions, but optimizing their efficacy while minimizing participant burden remains a key challenge. Here, we investigated the potential benefits of a burst delivery design, i.e., intervention delivered only in pre-defined time intervals,...

Background: Little comparative data on substance use (SU) between sexual minority youth (SMY) and heterosexual youth (HET) is available. This study compares the prevalence of SU in an urban cohort between SMY and HET and evaluates demographic and psychosocial predictors of SU. Methods: Data came from a prospective-longitudinal cohort study in an...

Objective: Epidemiological studies increasingly use hair samples to assess people’s cumulative exposure to steroid hormones, but how the use of different psychoactive substances may affect steroid hormone levels in hair is, so far, largely unknown. The current study addresses this gap by establishing the substance exposure correlates of cortisol, c...

Objective: A natural experiment that provided income supplements to families has been associated with beneficial outcomes for children that persisted into adulthood. The children in this study are now adults and many are parents. Method: The study builds on the 20+ year longitudinal, representative Great Smoky Mountains study conducted from 1993...

Life course epidemiology seeks to understand the intricate relationships between risk factors and health outcomes across different stages of life to inform prevention and intervention strategies to optimize health throughout the lifespan. However, extant evidence has predominantly been based on separate analyses of data from individual birth cohort...

We examined early adolescent predictors of later distress and adaptive coping in early adulthood, using data from a prospective longitudinal cohort study ( n = 786). In early adolescence (age 13), we assessed indicators of mental health (internalizing symptoms), stressor exposure (cumulative stressful life events), and family socialization (support...

Importance: Upward income mobility is associated with better health outcomes and reduced stress. However, opportunities are unequally distributed, particularly so for those in rural communities and whose family have lower educational attainment. Objective: To test the impact of parental supervision on their children's income two decades later ad...

Background Positive prospective mental imagery plays an important role in mental well-being, and depressive symptoms have been associated with difficulties in generating positive prospective mental images (PPMIs). We used a mobile app to gather PPMIs generated by young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic and analyzed content, characteristics, and a...

Unlabelled: Historic declines in young people's mental health began to emerge before the COVID-19 pandemic. In the face of this youth mental health crisis, the pandemic constituted a naturalistic stressor paradigm that came with the potential to uncover new knowledge for the science of risk and resilience. Surprisingly, approximately 19-35% of peo...

This study examined longitudinal links between several dimensions of parent–child relationship and adolescent substance use, and tested the role of self-control in mediating these. Data came from the Zurich Project on the Social Development from Childhood to Adulthood. Validated questionnaires were used to measure parent–child domains at age 11, se...

Introduction: Reappraisal is one of the highly modifiable resilience factors and an important emotion regulation strategy. Reappraisal training can be delivered via mobile apps; however, such apps have typically combined reappraisal with other techniques. To address this gap, we developed ReApp, which engages users solely in reappraisal. Methods: F...

Despite considerable scientific interest in documenting growing despair among U.S. adults, far less attention has been paid to defining despair and identifying appropriate measures. Emerging perspectives from social science and psychiatry outline a comprehensive, multidimensional view of despair, inclusive of individuals' cognitive, emotional, biol...

Objective: Large-scale epidemiological research often uses self-reports to determine the prevalence of illicit substance use. Self-reports may suffer from inaccurate reporting but can be verified with objective measures. This study examined the following: the prevalence of illicit and non-medical substance use with self-reports and hair toxicology,...

Background: Consistent findings have reported that FFM is associated with EI. However, conjoint assessments of physiologic (body composition, fasting serum leptin) and behavioral [eating behaviors and physical activity (PA)] correlates of EI during emerging adulthood have not been examined. Objectives: We assessed associations between physiologi...

Hair concentrations of cortisol, cortisone, and testosterone are non-invasive measures of cumulative steroid hormone levels. Use of contraceptives co-varies with levels of cortisol and cortisone in women's hair. It is unclear, however, how different contraceptive methods (i.e., that differ in their steroid hormone composition) affect corticosteroid...

OBJECTIVES First, to leverage 15 years of longitudinal data, from child ages 2 to 17, to examine whether maternal depressive symptoms in early and middle childhood and in adolescence predict their child’s unhealthy behaviors during adolescence. Second, to examine whether the timing of maternal depressive symptoms or specific unhealthy behaviors mat...

Importance: During an ongoing longitudinal cohort study, a casino opening created a natural cash transfer experiment. Some participating families received income supplements, and others did not. The children in this study are now adults. Objective: To assess the long-term outcomes of family income supplements received in childhood. Design, sett...

Introduction: We investigated the longitudinal course of self-, other-, and dual-harm in adolescents, focusing on the infliction of physical injury on oneself, another person, or both parties, respectively. We examined the within-person transitions between these types of harm and whether relationships with peers and teachers predict individual har...

Introduction: Debates about the legalization of illegal substances (e.g., cannabis) continue around the globe. A key consideration in these debates is the adequate protection of young people, which could be informed by current prevalence and age-of-onset patterns. For Switzerland, such information is limited, which is particularly true for women,...

Background: Positive prospective mental imagery plays an important role in mental well-being, and depressive symptoms have been associated with difficulties in generating positive prospective mental images (PPMIs). We used a mobile app to gather PPMIs generated by young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic and analyzed content, characteristics, and...

Background Little is known about the childhood antecedents and adult correlates of adolescent dual-harm (i.e. co-occurring self- and other-harm). We examine the longitudinal associations between (a) social and psychological risk factors in childhood and adolescent dual-harm and (b) adolescent dual-harm and social and mental health impairments in ea...

Background Adolescent suicidality, suicidal ideation (SUI) and self-harming behaviour (SI) are major public health issues. One group of adolescents known to be particularly prone to suicidality and mental health problems is lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) youth. Although the social acceptance of the LGB community has increased in recent years, LGB...

Background The juvenile justice system in the USA adjudicates over seven hundred thousand youth in the USA annually with significant behavioral offenses. This study aimed to test the effect of juvenile justice involvement on adult criminal outcomes. Methods Analyses were based on a prospective, population-based study of 1420 children followed up t...

The Zurich Project on the Social Development from Childhood to Adulthood (z-proso) began in 2004 in response to the need for a better evidence base to support optimal child social development and prevent crime and violence. Since then, the study has tracked the development of a diverse sample of youths ( N = 1,675 in the target sample; ~50% female)...

Introduction: Robust sensitivity to reward may help preserve positive emotions in the face of adversity and has been proposed as a key resilience factor. We describe the development, feasibility, and efficacy of an mHealth application, Imager, which targets reward sensitivity by training individuals to create mental images of future rewarding exper...

Background: Longitudinal studies are needed to clarify whether early adversities are associated with advanced methylation age or if they actually accelerate methylation aging. This study test whether different dimensions of childhood adversity accelerate biological aging from childhood to adulthood, and, if so, via which mechanisms. Methods: 381...

Polysubstance use (i.e., simultaneous or sequential use of different psychoactive substances) is associated with increases in the risk of severe health problems and social impairments. The present study leverages community-representative, long-term longitudinal data from an urban cohort to assess: (a) the prevalence and continuation of polysubstanc...

Objective The aim of this study was to estimate the six-month prevalence of mental illness in children with chronic physical illness (multimorbidity), examine agreement between parent and child reports of multimorbidity, and identify factors associated with child multimorbidity. Method The sample included 263 children aged 2–16 years with a physic...

Objective This study tested the ‘intervention as prevention’ hypothesis: that treatment of childhood psychopathology in the community might reduce risk for adult psychopathology. Method Analyses were based on a prospective, population-based study of 1,420 children followed up to 8 times during childhood (ages 9 to 16; 6674 observations) about psyc...

Using a multimethod, multiinformant longitudinal design, we examined associations between specific forms of positive and negative emotional reactivity at age 5, children’s effortful control (EC), emotion regulation, and social skills at age 7, and adolescent functioning across psychological, academic, and physical health domains at ages 15/16 ( N =...

PurposeThis study examined health-related quality of life (HRQL) in children across different physical illnesses; estimated parent–child agreement on HRQL reports; compared HRQL between children with and without physical–mental multimorbidity; and tested if multimorbidity was associated with HRQL.Methods Children aged 6–16 years (mean = 11.1; n = 1...

Background: There is evidence of unmet psychiatric needs in children under 6. These young children are dependent on their parents to identify their mental health needs. This study tested child and parent associations with parent perception of young child mental health need. Method: Parents of 917 children (aged 2-6 years) completed a diagnostic...

The pathways through which exposure to maternal depressive symptoms in early childhood are linked to academic performance during adolescence are poorly understood. This study tested pathways from maternal depressive symptoms (age 2–5) to adolescent academic performance (age 15) through cumulative parenting risk (age 7) and subsequent child function...

Background: Amidst cannabis legalization efforts and laws, we do not fully understand how the youngest frequent cannabis users fare during young adulthood. This study aims to 1) examine the prevalence of cannabis use during adolescence, and 2) investigate links of frequent (i.e., weekly or daily) teenage cannabis use with psychopathology and funct...

The Zurich Project on Social Development from Childhood to Adulthood (z-proso) began in 2004 in response to the need for a better evidence base to support optimal child social development and prevent crime and violence. Since then, the study has tracked the development of a diverse sample of youths (N = 1,675 in the target sample; ~50% female) from...

Objective Research on associations of early cannabis use with adult functioning reports mixed findings. This may be due, in part, to wide variations in the definitions of early cannabis use. This study aims to compare associations of four commonly-used definitions of early cannabis use—related to timing, dose, duration, and associated symptoms—with...

Objectives: To test the associations of childhood domestic gun access with adult criminality and suicidality. Methods: Analyses were based on a 20+ year prospective, community-representative study of 1420 children, who were assessed up to 8 times during childhood (ages 9-16; 6674 observations) about access to guns in their home. Participants wer...

We examined the longitudinal course of, and pre‐ and during‐pandemic risk factors for, self‐injury and domestic physical violence perpetration in young adults during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Data came from a Swiss longitudinal study (N = 786, age ~22 in 2020), with one prepandemic (2018) and four during‐pandemic assessments (2020). The prevalence of...

Background Loneliness is a major risk factor for both psychological disturbance and poor health outcomes in adults. This study aimed to assess whether childhood loneliness is associated with a long-term disruption in mental health that extends into adulthood. Methods This study is based on the longitudinal, community-representative Great Smoky Mou...

Adolescent self-injury is a widespread public health problem, but long-term longitudinal studies from European countries are rare. Self-injury in males and sex differences are poorly understood. This study describes the prevalence, frequency, age-related course, and recurrence of, and mental health services use related to adolescent self-injury. Da...

Cardiometabolic risk (CMR) has increased among adolescents. A growing literature shows that childhood self-regulatory skills are associated with obesity and CMR. However, the developmental nature of self-regulation has not been considered in existing studies. Therefore, it is unclear how specific types of self-regulation (i.e., attentional, emotion...

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Einleitung Eine wachsende Zahl psychologischer Behandlungsangebote erfolgt über das Smartphone, bzw. über Apps. Viele der wissenschaftlich geprüften Apps basieren auf den Prinzipien der kognitiven Verhaltenstherapie (KVT), Goldstandard zur Behandlung vieler psychischer Problematiken. Ziel dieses Reviews war es, den Status Quo der Fo...

The goal of the current analyses was to explore associations of self-rated physical attractiveness with facets of psychological well-being across adolescence. Participants provided information on their perceived physical attractiveness, internalized distress, suicidal ideation, and self-harm at 15, 17 and 20 years of age. Male adolescents repeatedl...

Objectives: Young adults are essential to the effective mitigation of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19) given their tendency toward greater frequency of social interactions. Little is known about vaccine willingness during pandemics in European populations. This study examined young people’s attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines in Fall 2020...

Objective: This manuscript serves to provide an overview of the methods of the Multimorbidity in Children and Youth across the Life-course (MY LIFE) study, profile sample characteristics of the cohort, and provide baseline estimates of multimorbidity to foster collaboration with clinical and research colleagues across Canada. Method: MY LIFE is...

Violent ideations are increasingly recognized as an important psychological pre-dictor for aggressive and violent behavior. However, little is known about the processes that contribute to violent ideations. This paper examines the extent to which polyvictimization triggers violent ideations in late adolescence and early adulthood, while also adjust...

In 2015, economists Case and Deaton¹ reported that decades-long gains in US life expectancy had stalled and reversed and that rates of premature mortality had risen among middle-aged non-Hispanic White individuals with low education. They hypothesized that this premature mortality was due to increases in cause-specific mortality from suicides, drug...

Introduction: Resting heart rate (HRrest), heart rate variability (HRV), and HR recovery (HRR) from exercise provide valuable information about cardiac autonomic control. RR-intervals during acute recovery from exercise (RRrec) are commonly excluded from HRV analyses due to issues of non-stationarity. However, the variability and complexity within...

Sympathy is regarded as an important precursor to the development of emotional intimacy, including mutual disclosure. In turn, emotional intimacy is assumed to foster the development of sympathy. Yet, research has not examined how sympathy and mutual disclosure in generic friendships are mutually related to one another during mid‐adolescence to ear...

Emotional eating is associated with an increased risk of binge eating, eating in the absence of hunger and obesity risk. While previous studies with children and adolescents suggest that emotion regulation may be a key predictor of this dysregulated eating behavior, little is known about what other factors may be influencing the link between emotio...

Importance Opioid use disorder and opioid deaths have increased dramatically in young adults in the US, but the age-related course or precursors to opioid use among young people are not fully understood. Objective To document age-related changes in opioid use and study the childhood antecedents of opioid use by age 30 years in 6 domains of childho...

Background: A growing number of psychological interventions are delivered via smartphones with the aim of increasing the efficacy and effectiveness of these treatments and providing scalable access to interventions for improving mental health. Most of the scientifically tested apps are based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles, which a...

OBJECTIVE: Some eating behaviors are associated with negative nutrition-related outcomes in adults, but research is lacking in adolescent samples. The current study examined whether dietary restraint moderates the relationship between disinhibition and weight outcomes and overall diet quality in a community sample of 16-year old adolescents. METHOD...

Self-injury often arises as a maladaptive coping strategy used to alleviate distress. Past research has typically examined how chronic stressors in a specific context are associated with self-injury. Little is known about the unique and cumulative associations between acute stressful life events that occur in different social contexts and self-inju...

Rationale: Adolescents and young adults were identified internationally as a group with potentially low compliance rates with public health measures aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Although non-compliance research during pandemics has typically focused on concurrent correlates, less is known about how prior soci...

Introduction: A growing number of psychological interventions are delivered via smartphone with the aim to increase the efficacy and effectiveness of these treatments and provide scalable access to interventions for improving mental health. Most of the scientifically tested apps are based on cognitive behavioural therapy principles which are consid...

Objective Depression is common, impairing, and the leading cause of disease burden in youth. This study aimed to identify the effects of childhood/adolescent depression on a broad range of longer-term outcomes. Method The analysis is based on the prospective, representative Great Smoky Mountains Study of 1,420 participants. Participants were asses...

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and associated lockdown could be considered a 'perfect storm' for increases in emotional distress. Such increases can only be identified by studies that use data collected before and during the pandemic. Longitudinal data are also needed to examine (1) the roles of previous distress and...

Importance Deaths of despair is a term that has recently been used to describe the increases in premature mortality from suicides, drug overdoses (particularly from opiates), and alcohol-related liver disease among US adults. Despite the use of the term despair, its role in these causes of premature death has not been empirically tested. Objective...

Objectives Establishing a diet that follows the Dietary Guidelines for Americans has been associated with lower risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease and cancer. Some research has shown that individuals’ desire for weight control is an important factor in determining food choices. The aims of this study were to 1) examine dietary restraint...

Background A growing number of psychological interventions are delivered via smartphones with the aim of increasing the efficacy and effectiveness of these treatments and providing scalable access to interventions for improving mental health. Most of the scientifically tested apps are based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles, which ar...

Background: Do young adults have low compliance rates with public health measures aimed at curbing the spread of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)? This paper leverages a prospective-longitudinal cohort study with data before and during the pandemic to examine this question.Methods: Data came from an ongoing cohort study (n=737). Non-compliance w...

A fundamental question in developmental science is how parental emotion socialization processes are associated with children's subsequent adaptation. Few extant studies have examined this question across multiple developmental periods and levels of analysis. Here, we tested whether mothers' supportive and nonsupportive reactions to their 5-year-old...

Parasympathetic nervous system functioning as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is widely used as a measure of physiological regulation. We examined developmental patterns of children's resting RSA and RSA reactivity from 2 to 15 years of age, a period of time that is marked by considerable advances in children's regulatory abilities. P...

Peer victimization is a well-established risk factor for children's internalizing problems. We longitudinally examined the moderating role of children's early perceptions of positive peer relationships and inhibitory control on the association between peer victimization at age 6 and internalizing symptoms at age 10. Perceptions of peer relationship...