Young adults exposed to incarceration as children prone to depression

Anxiety high among this population

September 4, 2019

Science Daily/Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago

Young adults with childhood history of both parental incarceration and juvenile justice involvement were nearly three times more likely to have depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) compared to peers without any experience with the criminal justice system, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open. They also were nearly twice as likely to have anxiety compared to young adults without childhood exposure to incarceration.

"This is a particularly vulnerable and understudied population. Incarceration impacts families across generations, and youth who had a parent in jail or prison more often find themselves in the juvenile justice system," says lead author Nia Heard-Garris, MD, MSc, a pediatrician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and Instructor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "Young adults with histories of both juvenile incarceration and parental incarceration as children had a strong association with poor mental health outcomes in young adulthood."

Five million U.S. children have had a parent incarcerated, and those children are estimated to be involved in the juvenile justice system at three times the rate of their peers without a history of parental incarceration.

To examine the association between childhood history of incarceration (parental incarceration plus juvenile justice involvement) and mental health outcomes, Dr. Heard-Garris and co-lead author, Kaitlyn Sacotte, MD, a former medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and current pediatric resident physician at Oregon Health Science University, and colleagues, used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to Adult Health.

Out of 13,083 participants, 1,247 (9 percent) had childhood history of parental incarceration, 492 (4.5 percent) had juvenile justice involvement, and 141 (1 percent) had a childhood history of both parental incarceration and juvenile justice involvement. Black individuals accounted for over 33 percent of participants who reported both parental incarceration and juvenile justice involvement, and Latinx participants accounted for over 17 percent.

"Our analyses highlight that a history of both parental incarceration and juvenile justice involvement occurs for 1 out of every 100 U.S. children overall and is disproportionally more common among youth of color," says Dr. Heard-Garris.

Although Black and Latinx individuals were more highly represented, researchers found that the group with dual incarceration exposure had higher odds of poor mental health outcomes that are independent of other factors, such as race or ethnicity, age, family structure, parental education, receipt of public assistance, and residence in the city, suburbs or rural areas.

The researchers additionally found that a history parental incarceration or juvenile justice involvement alone was also associated with worse mental health outcomes compared to peers without incarceration exposure.

"Currently parental incarceration is considered an adverse childhood experience, but juvenile justice involvement is not," says Dr. Heard-Garris. "Given the increased risk for poor mental health outcomes we found in our study, perhaps we should also consider juvenile justice involvement an adverse childhood experience and start screening youth for any incarceration exposure during typical healthcare visits. This would allow us to further support vulnerable patients by connecting them with appropriate resources."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190904113208.htm

Children of incarcerated parents have more substance abuse, anxiety

August 23, 2019

Science Daily/Duke University

Children of incarcerated parents are six times more likely than other children to develop a substance use disorder as adults and nearly twice as likely to have diagnosable anxiety, according to new research from the Center for Child and Family Policy at the Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy.

In addition, children whose parents were incarcerated are more likely to encounter significant hurdles transitioning into adulthood, including being charged with a felony (35% vs. 11.5%), dropping out of high school (25.5% vs. 5.0%), becoming a teenage parent (14.3% vs. 2.8%), experiencing financial strain (37.2% vs. 17.5%), and being socially isolated (24.5% vs. 9.4%), the study found.

"The increased risk for adverse adult outcomes remained after accounting for childhood psychiatric status and other adversities, suggesting that parental incarceration is associated with profound and long-lasting effects for children," said co-author William E. Copeland of the University of Vermont, who conducted the research while at Duke. "This increased risk persisted whether the incarcerated parent was biologically related to the child or not. Risk for adverse adult outcomes increased further with each additional incarcerated parent figure."

The United States has among the highest incarceration rates in the world. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that over half of those who are incarcerated are parents of children under age 18.

With more than 2.7 million children experiencing a parent being sent to jail or prison, understanding the long-term health and social implications of incarceration for children is critical, the researchers say.

The study was published Friday in JAMA Network Open. Lead author Beth Gifford of Duke University and Copeland, principal investigator for the Great Smoky Mountains Study, along with colleagues from Duke, the University of Vermont and the University of Zurich, analyzed data gathered between 1993 and 2015 on the life experiences of children from the Appalachian Mountains in western North Carolina from age nine until age 30.

Researchers considered all adults who had significant responsibility for the child's discipline or care to be "parental figures." They also interviewed families as many as eight times during childhood. Using those methods, researchers identified a higher prevalence of incarceration by parental figures (23.9 percent) than the 8 to 11 percent previously documented in other population-based studies.

Incarceration rates for parental figures were higher among racial and ethnic minorities: 47.9 percent among American Indians and 42.7 percent among African-Americans, compared with 21.4 percent among whites. Parental incarceration cases overwhelmingly involved fathers (87.9 percent).

"Our findings point to the potentially high societal costs of incarcerating children's caregivers -- potentially for generations to come," said Gifford. "From a public health perspective, preventing parental incarceration could improve the well-being of children and young adults, as could aiding children and families once a parent figure has been incarcerated."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190823140734.htm