Early Adversity, Interpersonal Stress, and Health Risk Behaviors in Adolescents

Early adversity and interpersonal stress are pervasive among youth and are important determinants of health that impair psychological, physical, and emotional functioning and are linked to health risk behaviors such as substance use and maladaptive eating. However, little research has examined how adolescents experience and respond to interpersonal stress in real time, and how different types of early adversity may influence their response to interpersonal stress. The proposed project seeks to develop, refine, and test a theoretical model of the contexts (social, emotional) in which interpersonal stress and health risk behaviors occur among youth while considering specific types of early adversity. Specific Aim 1 will utilize qualitative approaches to explore the contexts in which interpersonal stress and health risk behaviors occur in youth while considering their experiences of different types of early adversity. Specific Aim 2 will develop and refine an ecological momentary assessments protocol derived from qualitative data and explore whether the ecological momentary assessment protocol accurately captures the context in which early adversity and health risk behaviors occur in adolescents. Specific Aim 3 will evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the ecological momentary protocol in adolescents. This study fills a fundamental gap by exploring interpersonal stress and health risk behaviors among adolescents in real-time and considers how types of early adversity may influence responses to real-time experiences of interpersonal stress. Findings from this study will provide insight into how to refine screening tools and interventions for health risk behaviors in youth.