Project 460880

Past traumatic events can leave lasting negative impacts on parents that may, in turn, negatively affect their children's health and development. This link is complex and not understood or addressed enough by either our healthcare or social service systems. Past trauma experienced by parents, such as Adverse Childhood Experiences and Intimate Partner Violence, can negatively influence children's health and development, creating lifelong consequences. Parental trauma may also undermine their parenting, parent-child attachment, and mental health. Unfortunately, there is a lack of Canadian longitudinal studies examining parental trauma, childhood developmental health, and parental characteristics like parenting style, attachment, and mental health. Without this information, healthcare and social service policies/programs cannot address related risks. From data collected by the Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition (APrON) cohort study, this research aims to understand the influence of parental trauma histories on childhood developmental health at 2, 3, 5 and 8 years of age, while also studying how parenting style, attachment, and parental mental health may moderate impacts. Understanding these important parent-child associations, and including both mothers and fathers, are overlooked areas of study that this research will improve. Contributions from this study include: 1) suggesting Canadian-tailored policy recommendations to prevent the impact of parental trauma on child health and development, and 2) supporting the development of evidence-based programs and/or measures to improve child health and development impacted by parental trauma. To achieve these goals, I plan to collaborate and engage with knowledge users such as policymakers, clinicians, social workers, and educators on the decision-making of research steps with the support of the APrON Parent Advisory Committee.