Over the past several decades, middle-aged Americans have exhibited troubling trends of declining mental and physical health over successive cohorts. Interestingly, this trend has not been observed in peer nations in Europe, Asia, and Mexico. Later-born cohorts in other countries typically report better midlife mental and physical health than their earlier-born counterparts. It is less clear the extent to which physical pain shows similar trends to what has been observed in the U.S. and comparison peer nations. The goal of the current study was to examine how self-reports of pain have historically changed during midlife and investigate whether differences emerge between the U.S. and peer nations. We used harmonized data on pain from nationally representative longitudinal panel surveys from the U.S., 13 European nations, South Korea, and Mexico to directly quantify similarities and differences in historical change in midlife pain. Our results supported the hypothesis that midlife pain is higher amongst later-born cohorts in the U.S. A similar pattern of historical increases in pain was observed in Continental and Nordic Europe. In England, Mediterranean Europe, South Korea, and Mexico, the opposite pattern was observed with historical declines in pain. Historical increases in reports of pain in the U.S. emerged more quickly for later-born cohorts at earlier stages of midlife. These results suggest there could be aspects of American midlife today that are exacerbating reports of pain, and these aspects may be shared in some European nations but absent or less influential in other peer nations. Our discussion focuses on potential explanations for this pattern, such as population level discrepancies in health, differential use of health care services, and the inter/intrapersonal costs of westernization, as well as how pain is conceptualized across nations.

Chronic pain is common among children and can lead to future physical disability and health problems. The Biopsychosocial model of child pain suggests that biological, psychological, and social factors predict pain risk, but most research has focused on biological and psychological factors impacting child pain, and less on social factors. One social factor is family stress, including parent mental and physical health problems, and parenting and marital stress. The impact of stress, however, may vary depending on the presence of positive family resources, including marital empathy, parental warmth, and interpersonal support. Thus, the current longitudinal study examined links between family stress and increases in child pain during middle childhood and tested whether positive resources acted as a buffer to protect the development of child pain and if low social status acted as an extra stressor to make pain worse. Participants were part of the Arizona Twin Project, an ongoing longitudinal project of twins. At twin age 9, primary caregivers (PCs) reported on different stress, social status, and positive resources measures, and PCs and twins reported on twin bodily pain. At twin age 11, PCs and twins again reported on twin chronic bodily pain. Neither greater family stress nor parent physical health problems predicted increases in child pain over two years, controlling for twin pain at age 9. In tests of moderation, a single significant interaction emerged in a direction opposite of prediction: the relation between family stress and child pain was moderated by social status, such that average and high levels of social status exacerbated the relation between family stress, and child pain at age 11. Although the interaction needs to be replicated, findings suggest that high social status may act as a risk factor for poor child physical health and pain when family stress is high. Future research should further explore whether and how family stress and social status, as well as peer stress and resources, alone and in combination predict health as children age into adolescence.

The interconnection between family contexts and sleeping patterns play a crucial role in childhood development, with disturbances in either being indicative of future health outcomes in adulthood. It is unclear whether sibling relationships and sleep would have a similar effect as there are not many studies that have examined these links by using subjective sleep and sibling relationship assessments. Given this gap in the literature, the present studied aimed to 1) examine potential bidirectional relations between sibling relationships (warmth, conflict) and sleep variables (duration, efficiency, and sleep midpoint variability) across ages 8 and 10, and 2) test whether a novel sibling interaction task with measures of sharing and competition conducted at age 8 predicts sleep variables both cross sectionally and two years later at age 10. Data are from the Arizona Twin Project which includes a racially and socioeconomically diverse representation of children in Arizona. Twins wore an actigraph watch at both age 8 and age 10 to capture sleep duration and efficiency. Primary caregivers also reported sibling relationships via a questionnaire during both waves. Twins completed a marble pulling task to measure negotiation and cooperation behaviors at age 8 only. We tested cross-lagged prospective associations between sleep and sibling contexts. My study identified a longitudinal, positive association with sibling warmth at age 8 and sleep duration at age 10 and another concurrent, positive association with sibling conflict at age 8 and sleep midpoint variability at age 8. A negative association was identified between sibling warmth and sleep efficiency at age 10. Stability over time was also identified in both sleep variables and sibling relationships. Future studies can further investigate the different ways siblings may influence sleep behaviors, or vice versa, by taking into consideration the quality of the relationship, age, gender, and overall family dynamics. Due to the complexity of sibling relationships, the relations between sleep and siblings may vary among different individuals and families. These additional factors may need to be considered when evaluating the effects of sibling relationships and sleep on child development and well-being.

In cross-situational word learning, individuals associate words with their meanings by observing their use across multiple encounters. This is considered to be a crucial mechanism involved in early childhood language acquisition. However, whether learners can track multiple words for referents cross-situationally, such as when learning synonyms, remains poorly understood. The present study investigated the effects of age on children’s cross-situational word learning (CSWL) from a two-to-one structure, where objects are given two names. Younger (4 to 5.4 years, N = 29) and older (5.5 to 7.9 years, N = 48) children completed a cross-situational word learning task in which, during the first half of training, objects were labeled with one label (First words) and in the second half of training, objects were given a new second label (Second words). Results showed that age interacted with learning: younger children learned second labels but not first labels, whereas older children learned first labels but not second labels. These findings indicate the limitations of children’s capacity to learn complex word-referent mappings in CSWL.

Hispanic/Latinx college students are at a greater risk for developing problematic alcohol use and negative mental health outcomes such as depression and anxiety because they experience contextual stressors (i.e., financial stress, academic stress, peer pressure) and cultural stressors (i.e., bicultural stress, acculturative stress, discrimination). Bicultural stress may be a risk factor for depressive, anxiety, and alcohol use disorder (AUD) symptoms. The cultural value of familism may play a protective role in Hispanic/Latinx college students. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of bicultural stress on depressive, anxiety, and AUD symptoms in first-year Hispanic/Latinx college students, and the role familism plays on moderating the relationship between bicultural stress and the outcomes. The sample was taken from the Pathways to College Health Study (N = 264; Female = 74.9%), which was survey administered via Qualtrics to first-year, Hispanic/Latinx college students at Arizona State University. The survey captured the participants’ levels of bicultural stress, familism, depressive, anxiety, and AUD symptoms. IBM SPSS Statistics was used for data analyses where three hierarchical regression models were run investigating the main effects and interaction effect of bicultural stress and familism. Results showed that higher levels of bicultural stress were associated with higher levels of mental health but were not associated with higher levels of AUD symptoms. Additionally, familism was not significantly associated with mental health or AUD symptoms suggesting familism may not play a substantial role in Hispanic/Latinx college students. There was no interaction found between familism and bicultural stress on the outcomes. These findings may aide in informing Hispanic/Latinx college students, universities, and clinicians on the impact bicultural stress may have on mental health outcomes.

Introduction: Edibles, THC-infused food products, are a popular type of cannabis. However, there is limited research on how acute effects of edibles differ from more traditional cannabis types, such as smoked flower (e.g., dried bud). The current study examined the subjective response of cannabis between smoked flower and edibles using a two-week long ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Sex differences were also examined.Method: Individuals (n=101) using both edibles and flower at least once weekly completed a cannabis report within 30 minutes (T1) of first cannabis use each day as well as two follow-up reports sent 1.5 (T2) and 3 hours (T3) after initial use. Participants additionally completed assessments throughout the day for fourteen consecutive days to examine daily affect. Multi-level models examined whether overall high, low-arousal negative effects, high-arousal negative effects, and general positive effects differed by edibles and flower. Given time differences in effects between cannabis types, subjective effects were examined at T1, T2, and T3, as well as for the peak effects across the three-hour time window. Covariates included demographics, variant- and invariant- cannabis use characteristics, and daily affect. Results: At T1, edibles produced lesser positive effects (b=-0.60, S.E.=0.16, p=0.001) and overall high (b=-2.00, S.E.=0.27, p<0.001) relative to flower. At T2, edibles produced greater positive effects (b=0.52, S.E.=0.21, p=0.01) relative to flower. At T3, edibles produced greater low-arousal negative effects (b=0.63, S.E.=0.23, p=0.01) relative to flower. Edibles produced greater peak low-arousal effects relative to flower (b=0.59, S.E.=0.21, p=0.01), With respect to sex differences, there was an interaction between sex and cannabis type at T1 for positive effects (b=-0.99, S.E.=0.31, p=0.001), such that males reported greater positive effects for flower. Males additionally reported lesser low-arousal effects at T1 (b=-0.60, S.E.=0.30, p=0.05) and greater overall high at T3 relative to females (b=1.24, S.E.=0.56, p=0.03). Discussion: Smoked flower produced greater effects immediately and edibles produced greater delayed effects. Edibles appear to have greater peak levels of low-arousal effects (e.g., sluggish, drowsy, slow) relative to smoked flower. Males may be more sensitive to the rewarding effects of cannabis, particularly when smoking flower.