RefugeeBioEmbed · Individual Differences in the Biological Embedding of Developmental Origins of Health and Illness in Syrian Refugee Children

Individual Differences in the Biological Embedding of Developmental Origins of Health and Illness in Syrian Refugee Children

More than 15 million Syrians have been forcibly displaced as a result of the Syrian Civil War, leading to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis which is still ongoing today. Of the roughly 5.6 million registered Syrian refugees, nearly half are children. These youth, after facing a bloody and brutal conflict and flight from Syria, have then had to contend with poor living conditions, often in temporary settlements, and the losses of family, friends, and stabilizing institutions. Given these conditions, it is no surprise that refugee children are at significantly higher risk of developing poor mental health than the general population. This project aimed to shed light on how exposure to war and displacement impact child development and health by focusing on how these experiences ‘get under the skin’. With greater insight into these processes, we are better prepared to meet the needs of displaced children as well as other children who experience similar challenges. Furthermore, by learning more about how certain risk and protective factors influence the biological embedding of traumatic experiences, we can identify potential targets for intervention research. The Research Fellow (RF) investigated whether war and displacement experiences influenced refugee children’s pubertal timing. Previous research on pubertal timing–largely based on Western populations living in high-income countries–has demonstrated that certain kinds of adversity (e.g., threats, violence, abuse) are linked to accelerated pubertal timing while others (e.g., neglect, malnutrition) are linked to delayed pubertal timing. Abnormal pubertal timing, in turn, forecasts a number of mental and physical health problems later in life. In recent years, evidence has pointed to the idea that accelerated pubertal timing is one part of a broader process of accelerated biological aging. Briefly, biological aging refers to systemic deterioration which accompanies aging. Importantly, biological aging is modifiable; that is, it can be shifted faster or slower following certain exposures. This makes biological aging processes particularly attractive targets for potential interventions. Thus, the overall aims of this project were to: 1) investigate how war and displacement experiences impact children’s developmental trajectories, and 2) investigate whether modifiable risk and protective factors moderate the impact of adverse exposures on both pubertal timing and mental health outcomes. These aims were accomplished with three specific research objectives: 1) Investigate whether childhood adversity and protective factors impact pubertal timing of Syrian refugee children, accounting for ‘subtypes’ of environmental conditions and integrating physiological measures of stress response systems and pubertal onset. [RO1] 2) Investigate the relations among developmental trajectories (pubertal timing) and mental health outcomes, including both adverse and positive outcomes as well as modifiable risk/protective factors that influence those outcomes. [RO2] 3) Investigate whether self-report and genetic measures of Environmental Sensitivity moderate the effects of adversity and protective effects on pubertal timing, as well as the effects of pubertal timing on positive and negative mental health outcomes—also accounting for genetic correlates of mental health conditions. [RO3]

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз