Seeds of sorrow: a life-course approach to early-life parental death and later-life suicide and behavioral health risk

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Title Seeds of sorrow: a life-course approach to early-life parental death and later-life suicide and behavioral health risk
Publication Type dissertation
School or College College of Social & Behavioral Science
Department Sociology
Author Hollingshaus, Michael Steven
Date 2015-05
Description This dissertation explores the effects of early-life parental death upon an offspring's later-life risk of suicide, major depression and substance abuse. By situating the question within a biopsychosocial life-course framework, we find that this association may lead to secondary stressors, be moderated by familial vulnerabilities, and occur in tandem with other early-life stressors. The study offers innovative, creative, and substantial contributions to the current literature on early parental death and later behavioral health by (1) disentangling social from biological mechanisms by using remarriage of surviving parent as a proxy for social integration, (2) testing for differential vulnerability by investigating the moderating effects of familial suicide history, and (3) constructing and testing the influence of a new measure called the Utah demographic childhood adverse exposures (DECADE) scale. The findings suggest that early-life stress, especially parental death, may impact later-life behavioral health, and the association is moderated by other contextual factors. The dissertation further demonstrates the utility of demographic pedigree databases for transdisciplinary studies of behavioral health, and proposes innovative quantitative measurements that might be utilized for future life-course studies.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Differential vulnerability; Early-life conditions; Family; Life-course; Mental health; Suicide
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name Doctor of Philosophy
Language eng
Rights Management Copyright © Michael Steven Hollingshaus 2015
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 3,502,694 Bytes
Identifier etd3/id/3738
ARK ark:/87278/s6060q8v
Setname ir_etd
ID 197289
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6060q8v
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