J. Mark Eddy’s research while affiliated with University of Texas at Austin and other places

When COVID-19 first hit the United States, juvenile correctional facilities across the country discontinued all in-person activities including family visits. Correctional facilities across the country were among the last institutions to reopen their doors for in-person activities given the heightened risk of rapid spread. Drawing on data gathered in February and March 2022, this study examined the state of family visitation policies and COVID-19 safety responses adopted by juvenile correctional facilities, as reported on websites, including information on the different types of contact allowed; COVID-19 safety protocols and practices; availability of information on COVID-19 infection and vaccination rates; and the overall timeliness, consistency, and comprehensiveness of the information available to families with incarcerated minor children. Our findings highlight just how untimely, inconsistent, and incomprehensive information and policies were across jurisdictions, sometimes with little to no stated explanation for their decision-making. We argue that juvenile correctional facilities should take a family-focused approach when developing and disseminating policies that impact the lives of incarcerated youth and their families, especially in times of global uncertainty.

This study aimed to parse between-person heterogeneity in growth of impulsivity across childhood and adolescence among participants enrolled in five childhood preventive intervention trials targeting conduct problems. In addition, we aimed to test profile membership in relation to adult psychopathologies. Measurement items representing impulsive behavior across grades 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10, and aggression, substance use, suicidal ideation/attempts, and anxiety/depression in adulthood were integrated from the five trials (N = 4,975). We applied latent class growth analysis to this sample, as well as samples separated into nonintervention (n = 2,492) and intervention (n = 2,483) participants. Across all samples, profiles were characterized by high, moderate, low, and low-increasing impulsive levels. Regarding adult outcomes, in all samples, the high, moderate, and low profiles endorsed greater levels of aggression compared to the low-increasing profile. There were nuanced differences across samples and profiles on suicidal ideation/attempts and anxiety/depression. Across samples, there were no significant differences between profiles on substance use. Overall, our study helps to inform understanding of the developmental course and prognosis of impulsivity, as well as adding to collaborative efforts linking data across multiple studies to better inform understanding of developmental processes.

Fear of victimization (FOV) is a powerful determinant of behavior and prompts behavioral responses such as avoidance, associated with a decline in health-promoting activities and quality of life. Avoidance behaviors, which include constraining activities to perceived safe areas and avoiding areas regarded as unsafe, are of particular interest due to their high prevalence as a coping response to FOV and their link to adverse physical and mental health. Most research on FOV-related avoidance treats it as a single construct and have yet to elucidate the potential heterogeneity within this set of behaviors. We argue that such approach could mask potential heterogeneity among people who respond to FOV through avoidance and how they adapt to manage perceived risk. Our analysis extends the foundational knowledge regarding FOV-related avoidance using a person-centered approach. We attempted to capture distinct profiles across avoidance behaviors and how they are shaped by physical and social vulnerabilities. Data from the 2021 Mexico’s National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Security Survey ( n = 83,696) was analyzed using Latent Class Analysis focusing on 15 avoidance behaviors (e.g., stopped using public transportation). We conducted multinomial logistic regression to test whether age, gender, education, and neighborhood deprivation significantly predicted class membership. Findings revealed three classes: avoidant (most behavioral adjustments across the board), cautious (only adapted some behaviors), and protective (least behavioral adjustments, but more concerned about minors in their households). The results supported the hypothesized associations between age, gender, education, and neighborhood deprivation with group membership, but the significance differed by group. This research underscores the role of environmental context in shaping individual perceptions of safety and avoidance behavior. Finally, contrary to the approach of treating avoidance behavior as a single category, these findings present a more complex picture as distinct and meaningful patterns emerged across the three groups.

Most incarcerated fathers have connections to their families, and the quality of their family relationships is important not only to their reentry success but also to shaping positive child and family outcomes. However, there is a lack of rigorous evidence about interventions designed to strengthen parent-child and other family relationships among formerly incarcerated parents. The purpose of this study was to develop and assess for feasibility and acceptability an intervention for formerly incarcerated fathers, co-parents, and their children. We created and implemented the Pathways for Parents after Incarceration Program (P4P), a multilevel intervention that focuses on strengthening positive parenting skills, building constructive co-parenting strategies, providing social support, and connecting families to needed specialized services. We delivered P4P virtually to 3 groups of participants, collecting data at several points. Results suggest that while the program was well liked and appreciated by participants and parent coaches and had a positive effect on parenting skills and attitudes, recruitment and retention were challenging. Findings suggest that P4P has the potential to support child and family well-being when fathers reenter by bolstering protective factors, and supporting access to necessary supports associated with improved reentry outcomes. Additional research is needed to address feasibility concerns and establish program efficacy.

Psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) are common throughout childhood, and the presence of these experiences is a significant risk factor for poor mental health later in development. Given the association of PLEs with a broad number of mental health diagnoses, these experiences serve as an important malleable target for early preventive interventions. However, little is known about these experiences across childhood. While these experiences may be common, longitudinal measurement in non-clinical settings is not. Therefore, in order to explore longitudinal trajectories of PLEs in childhood, we harmonized three school-based randomized control trials with longitudinal follow-up to identify heterogeneity in trajectories of these experiences. In an integrative data analysis (IDA) using growth mixture modeling, we identified three latent trajectory classes. One trajectory class was characterized by persistent PLEs, one was characterized by high initial probabilities but improving across the analytic period, and one was characterized by no reports of PLEs. Compared to the class without PLEs, those in the improving class were more likely to be male and have higher levels of aggressive and disruptive behavior at baseline. In addition to the substantive impact this work has on PLE research, we also discuss the methodological innovation as it relates to IDA. This IDA demonstrates the complexity of pooling data across multiple studies to estimate longitudinal mixture models.

Rates of parental incarceration in the USA have increased dramatically over the past four decades. The Adverse Childhood Experiences study identified parental incarceration as one of several risk factors related to multiple health outcomes during childhood and adulthood. Parents and other caregivers are widely regarded as sources of resilience for children experiencing adversity, yet few studies have examined caregivers' parenting practices as sources of resilience for children with incarcerated parents. This study used secondary data from a longitudinal randomized controlled trial of the prison-based parent management training program Parenting Inside Out (PIO). Specifically, it included 149 caregivers (i.e., the non-incarcerated parent, extended family member, or other adult who provides the day-to-day caretaking of a child during parental incarceration) of children aged 2-14 years whose incarcerated parents were randomly assigned to receive PIO or the control condition. Path analysis was used to examine associations between caregivers' parenting, social support, self-efficacy, and change in child internalizing and externalizing symptoms across a 6-month period. Direct effects of caregivers' parenting were found on improvements in child behavioral health from baseline (conducted when the parent was incarcerated) to the 6-month follow-up (conducted after most parents had been released). Indirect effects were found for caregiver social support and self-efficacy. The findings highlight the importance of caregivers' adaptive parenting as a protective resource for children who experience parental incarceration and have implications for the design of preventive interventions for this underserved population.

Since the onset of COVID-19, visitation to correctional facilities has been in flux, including periods of nationwide suspensions for all in-person visits. Frequent, high-quality parent–child interactions are critical in preventing recidivism and beneficial for the healthy development of children with incarcerated parents. As more variants arise, prisons must reevaluate their family visitation policies to ensure that families stay connected yet safe. As a follow-up to a previous study, we documented how different jurisdictions, including all 50 states, the District of Columbia (D.C.), and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), communicated, via their websites, their response to COVID-19 and the changes to prison visitation policies. Using each jurisdiction's website as our primary data source, we gathered publicly available information related to each state's COVID-19 safety protocols and prison visitation policies, with special attention to policies pertaining to minors. Findings suggest that as of November and December 2021, all jurisdictions, except D.C., had resumed in-person family visits (n = 34; 65.4%) or had announced their commitment to a phased return (n = 17; 32.7%). Additionally, most states and D.C. (n = 35; 65.7%) offered video visits to all of their prison residents (incarcerated individuals) and six states (11.5%) offered video visits to some of their residents, whereas 11 states and the Federal BOP (21.2%) did not offer any video visits as an alternative. Despite the continued need for safe, accessible, and family-friendly alternatives to in-person visits, 11 jurisdictions did not offer video visitation to their residents further straining families’ ability to stay connected through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Coercive conflicts between parents and children and between couples are implicated in the pathogenesis of a variety of psychological and physical health problems. Despite its seeming importance to population health, there are no widely available, easy-to-use methods with demonstrated efficacy to engage coercive conflict and reduce it. Identifying and testing potentially efficacious and disseminable micro-interventions (i.e., interventions that can be delivered in under 15 minutes via computer or paraprofessional) for targets with cross-cutting health implications, such as coercive conflict, is the focus of the National Institutes of Health Science of Behavior Change initiative. We experimentally tested four micro-interventions targeting coercive conflict in couple and parent-child dyads in a within-between design. There were mixed but supportive findings for the efficacy of most of the micro-interventions. Attributional reframing, implementation intentions, and evaluative conditioning all reduced coercive conflict as assessed by some but not all measures of observed coercion. No findings indicated any iatrogenic effects. Interpretation bias modification treatment improved at least one measure of coercive conflict for couples, but not for parents and children; additionally, it increased self-reported coercive conflict. Overall, these results are encouraging and suggest that very brief and highly disseminable micro-interventions for coercive conflict are a fruitful direction for inquiry. Optimizing micro-interventions and deploying them across the health care infrastructure could tremendously enhance family functioning and, in turn, health behaviors and health (ClinicalTrials.gov IDs: NCT03163082, NCT03162822).