The impact of COVID-19 on the peer relationships of adolescents around the world: A rapid systematic review.

The main objective of this rapid systematic review was to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted peer relationships for adolescents (10-25 years of age) around the globe. We focused on four indices of peer relationships: (1) loneliness, (2) social connectedness, (3) social support, and (4) social media use. In addition, we examined gender and age differences. Four databases (APA PsychInfo, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science) were searched for articles published from January 2020 to November 2022. A total of 96 studies (cross-sectional: n = 66, longitudinal: n = 30, quantitative: n = 67, qualitative: n = 12, mixed-methods: n = 17) met our inclusion criteria (empirical observational studies with data on at least one of the indices of interest, cross-sectional data on COVID-19-related experiences or longitudinal data collected during the pandemic, age range of 10-25 years, typically developing adolescents). We extracted data and conducted a narrative synthesis. Findings suggest that COVID-19 disruptions negatively impacted peer relationships for youth. Most studies reported either an increase in loneliness over the course of the pandemic or a positive association between loneliness and COVID-19-related experiences. Similar findings were observed for increased social media use as a means of continued communication and connection. Fewer studies focused on social support but those that did reported a decrease or negative association with COVID-19-related experiences. Lastly, findings suggest a mixed impact on social connectedness, which might be due to the strengthening of closer ties and weakening of more distant relationships. Results for gender differences were mixed, and a systematic comparison of differences across ages was not possible. The heterogeneity in measures of COVID-19-related experiences as well as timing of data collection prevented a more nuanced examination of short and more long-term impacts.

Informing Harmonization Decisions in Integrative Data Analysis: Exploring the Measurement Multiverse.

Combining datasets in an integrative data analysis (IDA) requires researchers to make a number of decisions about how best to harmonize item responses across datasets. This entails two sets of steps: logical harmonization, which involves combining items which appear similar across datasets, and analytic harmonization, which involves using psychometric models to find and account for cross-study differences in measurement. Embedded in logical and analytic harmonization are many decisions, from deciding whether items can be combined prima facie to how best to find covariate effects on specific items. Researchers may not have specific hypotheses about these decisions, and each individual choice may seem arbitrary, but the cumulative effects of these decisions are unknown. In the current study, we conducted an IDA of the relationship between alcohol use and delinquency using three datasets (total N = 2245). For analytic harmonization, we used moderated nonlinear factor analysis (MNLFA) to generate factor scores for delinquency. We conducted both logical and analytic harmonization 72 times, each time making a different set of decisions. We assessed the cumulative influence of these decisions on MNLFA parameter estimates, factor scores, and estimates of the relationship between delinquency and alcohol use. There were differences across paths in MNLFA parameter estimates, but fewer differences in estimates of factor scores and regression parameters linking delinquency to alcohol use. These results suggest that factor scores may be relatively robust to subtly different decisions in data harmonization, and measurement model parameters are less so.

An Integrative Data Analysis of Main and Moderated Crossover Effects of Parent-Mediated Interventions on Depression and Anxiety Symptoms in Youth in Foster Care.

Without preventative intervention, youth with a history of foster care (FC) involvement have a high likelihood of developing depression and anxiety (DA) symptoms. The current study used integrative data analysis to harmonize data across four foster and kinship parent-mediated interventions (and seven randomized control trials) designed to reduce youth externalizing and other problem behaviors to determine if, and for how long, these interventions may have crossover effects on youth DA symptoms. Moderation of intervention effects by youth biological sex, developmental period, number of prior placements, and race/ethnicity was also examined. Youth (N = 1891; 59% female; ages 4 to 18 years) behaviors were assessed via the Child Behavior Checklist, Parent Daily Report, and Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory at baseline, the end of the interventions (4-6 months post baseline), and two follow-up assessments (9-12 months and 18-24 months post baseline), yielding 4830 total youth-by-time assessments. The interventions were effective at reducing DA symptoms at the end of the interventions; however, effects were only sustained for one program at the follow-up assessments. No moderation effects were found. The current study indicates that parent-mediated interventions implemented during childhood or adolescence aimed at reducing externalizing and other problem behaviors had crossover effects on youth DA symptoms at the end of the interventions. Such intervention effects were sustained 12 and 24 months later only for the most at-risk youth involved in the most intensive intervention.

Methodological Strategies for Prospective Harmonization of Studies: Application to 10 Distinct Outcomes Studies of Preventive Interventions Targeting Opioid Misuse.

The Helping to End Addiction Long-Term (HEAL) Prevention Cooperative (HPC) is rapidly developing 10 distinct evidence-based interventions for implementation in a variety of settings to prevent opioid misuse and opioid use disorder. One HPC objective is to compare intervention impacts on opioid misuse initiation, escalation, severity, and disorder and identify whether any HPC interventions are more effective than others for types of individuals. It provides a rare opportunity to prospectively harmonize measures across distinct outcomes studies. This paper describes the needs, opportunities, strategies, and processes that were used to harmonize HPC data. They are illustrated with a strategy to measure opioid use that spans the spectrum of opioid use experiences (termed involvement) and is composed of common "anchor items" ranging from initiation to symptoms of opioid use disorder. The limitations and opportunities anticipated from this approach to data harmonization are reviewed. Lastly, implications for future research cooperatives and the broader HEAL data ecosystem are discussed.

COVID-19 Life Events Spill-Over on Family Functioning and Adolescent Adjustment.

We examined US parent and youth perceptions of how life events, both positive and negative, associated with COVID-19 resulted in changes in family and youth functioning. Families (n = 105, 80% white, 48% male, and 87% mothers) completed surveys during the pandemic (May to July 2020) and 3 years prior (for youth ages M = 10.6, SD = 1.17 and M = 13.6, SD = 1.19). Declines in youth, though not parent, report of open family communication, parental support, and family satisfaction were found. Declines were associated with various domains of pandemic-related stress in parent report, though positive life events served as buffers. Pre-pandemic family functioning also predicted pandemic stress. Spillover effects in turn impacted youth functioning. The current findings shed light on how experiences of the pandemic are linked with family functioning and have implications for how to support families during this time.

Adolescence Amid a Pandemic: Short- and Long-Term Implications.

Members of the Society for Research on Adolescents COVID-19 Response Team offer this commentary to accompany this special issue of the Journal of Research on Adolescence regarding the impact of the pandemic on adolescents' social, emotional, and academic functioning. In addition to outlining the critical need for scholarly collaboration to address the global impact of this crisis on adolescent development, we argue that a broad investigative lens is needed to guide research and recovery efforts targeting youth development. We then use this broad lens to consider dimensions of the pandemic impact relative to developmental implications within community and policy contexts, educational contexts, social contexts, and family contexts. Finally, we describe guideposts for setting a global, shared research agenda that can hasten research to recovery efforts surrounding the pandemic and youth development.

Youth Internalizing Problems and Changes in Parent-Child Relationships Across Early Adolescence: Lability and Developmental Trends.

Few longitudinal studies examine how changes in parent-child relationships are associated with changes in youth internalizing problems. In this longitudinal study, we investigated how developmental trends (linear change) and year-to-year lability (within-person fluctuations) in parental warmth and hostility across Grade 6-8 predict youth internalizing problems in Grade 9 (N = 618) and whether these linkages differ for boys and girls. Developmental trends (greater decreases in warmth, increases in hostility) were associated with more youth internalizing problems. Greater year-to-year lability (more fluctuations) in father hostility and warmth were also associated with more internalizing problems. Greater lability in mother warmth was associated with more internalizing problems for girls only. The strongest effects of lability on internalizing problems were found for youth with the highest lability scores. This study underscores the importance of differentiating developmental trends from lability in parent-child relationships, both of which may be important for youth internalizing problems.

Harmonizing altered measures in integrative data analysis: A methods analogue study.

In the current study, we used an analogue integrative data analysis (IDA) design to test optimal scoring strategies for harmonizing alcohol- and drug-use consequence measures with varying degrees of alteration across four study conditions. We evaluated performance of mean, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and moderated nonlinear factor analysis (MNLFA) scores based on traditional indices of reliability (test-retest, internal, and score recovery or parallel forms) and validity. Participants in the analogue study included 854 college students (46% male; 21% African American, 5% Hispanic/Latino, 56% European American) who completed two versions of the altered measures at two sessions, separated by 2 weeks. As expected, mean, CFA, and MNLFA scores all resulted in scales with lower reliability given increasing scale alteration (with less fidelity to formerly developed scales) and shorter scale length. MNLFA and CFA scores, however, showed greater validity than mean scores, demonstrating stronger relationships with external correlates. Implications for measurement harmonization in the context of IDA are discussed.

Social network isolation mediates associations between risky symptoms and substance use in the high school transition.

The current study examined whether social status and social integration, two related but distinct indicators of an adolescent's standing within a peer network, mediate the association between risky symptoms (depressive symptoms and deviant behavior) and substance use across adolescence. The sample of 6,776 adolescents participated in up to seven waves of data collection spanning 6th to 12th grades. Scores indexing social status and integration were derived from a social network analysis of six schools and subsequent psychometric modeling. Results of latent growth models showed that social integration and status mediated the relation between risky symptoms and substance use and that risky symptoms mediated the relation between social standing and substance use during the high school transition. Before this transition, pathways involving deviant behavior led to high social integration and status and in turn to substance use. After this transition, both deviant behavior and depressive symptoms led to low social integration and status and in turn greater substance use. These findings suggest that the high school transition is a risky time for substance use related to the interplay of increases in depressive symptoms and deviant behavior on the one hand and decreases in social status and integration on the other.

A Latent Variable Approach to Measuring Social Dynamics in Adolescence.

In the study of adolescent health, it is useful to derive indices of social dynamics from sociometric data, and to use these indices as predictors of health risk behaviors. In this manuscript, we introduce a flexible latent variable model as a novel way of obtaining estimates of social integration and social status from school-based sociometric data. Such scores provide the flexibility of a regression-based approach while accounting for measurement error in sociometric indicators. We demonstrate the utility of these factor scores in testing complex hypotheses through a combination of structural equation modeling and survival models, showing that deviance mediates the relationship between social status and smoking onset hazard at the transition to high school.

Assessing the Robustness of Mixture Models to Measurement Noninvariance.

Recent work reframes direct effects of covariates on items in mixture models as differential item functioning (DIF) and shows that, when present in the data but omitted from the fitted latent class model, DIF can lead to overextraction of classes. However, less is known about the effects of DIF on model performance-including parameter bias, classification accuracy, and distortion of class-specific response profiles-once the correct number of classes is chosen. First, we replicate and extend prior findings relating DIF to class enumeration using a comprehensive simulation study. In a second simulation study using the same parameters, we show that, while the performance of LCA is robust to the misspecification of DIF effects, it is degraded when DIF is omitted entirely. Moreover, the robustness of LCA to omitted DIF differs widely based on the degree of class separation. Finally, simulation results are contextualized by an empirical example.

Child Effects on Lability in Parental Warmth and Hostility: Moderation by Parents' Internalizing Problems.

Research documents that lability in parent-child relationships-fluctuations up and down in parent-child relationships-is normative during adolescence and is associated with increased risk for negative outcomes for youth. Yet little is known about factors that predict lability in parenting. This study evaluated whether children's behaviors predicted lability in parent-child relationships. Specifically this study tested whether youth maladjustment (delinquency, substance use, internalizing problems) in Grade 6 was associated with greater lability (e.g., more fluctuations) in parents' warmth and hostility towards their children across Grades 6-8. The study also tested whether the associations between youth maladjustment and lability in parents' warmth and hostility were moderated by parents' internalizing problems. The sample included youth and their parents in two parent families who resided in rural communities and small towns (N = 618; 52% girls, 90% Caucasian). Findings suggest that parents' internalizing problems moderated the associations between child maladjustment and parenting lability. Among parents with high levels of internalizing problems, higher levels of youth maladjustment were associated with greater lability in parents' warmth. Among parents with low in internalizing problems, higher levels of youth maladjustment were associated with less lability in parents' warmth. The discussion focuses on how and why parent internalizing problems may affect parental reactivity to youth problem behavior and intervention implications.

Parenting Adolescents in an Increasingly Diverse World: Defining, Refining, and Extending Theory and Research.

This introduction to the Special Issue on Parenting Adolescents in an Increasingly Diverse World explores how increasing population diversity may provide a context for changes in the parenting of adolescents. In this issue, authors (1) explore the context for asking questions about parenting adolescents and diversity, (2) consider parents, adolescents, and parenting in different diversity contexts, and (3) reflect on crosscutting themes. Two articles examine the parenting in an international context and within changing domestic demographics. Four articles focus on parenting adolescents in traditionally marginalized groups with the goal of identifying lessons for supporting all youth in navigating an increasingly diverse world. Finally, two articles synthesize these articles to suggest important directions for future research.

Synthesizing a Special Issue on Parenting Adolescents in an Increasingly Diverse World.

Our goal is to identify integrative themes in this special issue on "Parenting Adolescents in an Increasingly Diverse World". Specifically, we identify themes that may generalize largely from studies of marginalized families to guide American families more broadly as youth navigate an increasingly diverse world. We describe three broad diversity socialization goals that may foster greater intercultural maturity in youth. These include helping youth find their place and value in a multicultural world, increase the value that they place on others and decrease their fears of difference, and prepare to respond to biased or perceived rejection. And we offer five directions for future research to help build a path forward in this important area of study.

Bidirectional Relationships between Alcohol-Specific Parental Socialization Behaviors and Adolescent Alcohol Misuse.

BACKGROUND: Although numerous studies have examined parental influence on adolescent alcohol misuse, few have examined how adolescents impact parental behavior or the reciprocal nature of parent-adolescent behavior relative to alcohol misuse. OBJECTIVES: This study assessed bidirectional relationships between adolescent alcohol misuse and three alcohol-specific parenting behaviors (substance-specific monitoring, permissive communication messages about alcohol, and cautionary communication messages about alcohol). METHODS: Data were from 1,645 parent-adolescent dyads drawn from a longitudinal study spanning grades 6-10. A multivariate latent curve model with structured residuals was used to test study hypotheses. RESULTS: One marginally significant result emerged (increased alcohol misuse leads to greater substance-specific monitoring) after accounting for underlying developmental processes. CONCLUSIONS: Though practical implications are limited based on the results of the study, further directions for research regarding study design and measurement are provided to more fully examine dynamic processes between parents and adolescents relative to alcohol use.

Depressive Symptomology as a Moderator of Friend Selection and Influence on Substance Use Involvement: Estimates from Grades 6 to 12 in Six Longitudinal School-Based Social Networks.

Although the contributions of friend selection and friend influence to adolescent homophily on substance use behaviors has been of enduring research interest, moderators of these processes have received relatively little research attention. Identification of factors that dampen or amplify selection and influence on substance use behaviors is important for informing prevention efforts. Whereas prior research has examined adolescent drinking, smoking, and marijuana use, the current study examined whether friend selection and friend influence operated on substance use involvement, an indicator of problematic use, and whether depressive symptomology moderated these processes. In addition, it examined whether these relationships varied from grade 6 to 12. The study used a cohort-sequential design in which three cohorts of youth (first surveyed in grades, 6, 7, and 8) in six school-based longitudinal social networks were surveyed up to seven times, yielding N = 6817 adolescents (49% female). Stochastic actor-oriented models were applied to test hypothesized relationships in the six networks, then results were synthesized in a meta-analysis. Depressive symptoms did not moderate selection or influence on substance use involvement at any grade level, but indirectly contributed to diffusion of substance use involvement through school networks via patterns of network ties. Research is needed on contextual factors, particularly in schools, that might account for when, if at all, depressive symptoms condition friend selection and influence on substance use.

Modeling Trajectories of Adolescent-Perceived Family Conflict: Effects of Marital Dissatisfaction and Parental Alcoholism.

We evaluated the effects of marital dissatisfaction on adolescent-perceived conflict in 435 families with and without a parental history of alcoholism. On average, family conflict decreased linearly as adolescents aged. Families with an alcoholic parent demonstrated higher adolescent-reported family conflict and this effect was partially mediated by higher mother- and father-reported marital dissatisfaction. Families with higher marital dissatisfaction had greater conflict when adolescents were young (based on fathers' marital dissatisfaction) and as they aged (based on mother's marital dissatisfaction). Years in which mothers reported higher marital dissatisfaction than usual coincided with years in which adolescents reported greater family conflict. Results indicate that marital dissatisfaction has both within and between-family effects on adolescent perceptions of conflict.

Intergenerational continuity in high-conflict family environments.

In the current study, we examined continuity in conflict across generations and explored potential mediators and moderators that could explain this continuity. We followed 246 targets from adolescence to adulthood and examined family conflict as reported by multiple reporters in targets' family of origin and current families. Results showed that conflict in the current family was strongly correlated with that of the family of origin in women but not in men. Continuity in family conflict across generations was mediated by patterns of elevated adolescent externalizing behavior in members of the second generation (G2). In addition, analyses revealed an interaction between both G2 partners' externalizing behavior such that if one partner in the G2 family demonstrated high levels of externalizing behavior, elevated levels of family conflict resulted. Potential explanations and implications of these findings are considered.

A Moderated Nonlinear Factor Model for the Development of Commensurate Measures in Integrative Data Analysis.

Integrative data analysis (IDA) is a methodological framework that allows for the fitting of models to data that have been pooled across two or more independent sources. IDA offers many potential advantages including increased statistical power, greater subject heterogeneity, higher observed frequencies of low base-rate behaviors, and longer developmental periods of study. However, a core challenge is the estimation of valid and reliable psychometric scores that are based on potentially different items with different response options drawn from different studies. In Bauer and Hussong (2009) we proposed a method for obtaining scores within an IDA called moderated nonlinear factor analysis (MNLFA). Here we move significantly beyond this work in the development of a general framework for estimating MNLFA models and obtaining scale scores across a variety of settings. We propose a five step procedure and demonstrate this approach using data drawn from n=1972 individuals ranging in age from 11 to 34 years pooled across three independent studies to examine the factor structure of 17 binary items assessing depressive symptomatology. We offer substantive conclusions about the factor structure of depression, use this structure to compute individual-specific scale scores, and make recommendations for the use of these methods in practice.

Friendship Intimacy, Close Friend Drug Use, and Self-Medication in Adolescence.

The current study examined between- and within-person processes related to friendship intimacy, close-friend substance use, negative affect, and self-medication. We tested between-person hypotheses that global negative affect, friendship intimacy, and close-friend drug use predict increased substance use, and the within-person hypothesis that friendship intimacy and close-friend substance use moderate the temporal relationship between daily negative affect and subsequent substance use (i.e., self-medication). Experience sampling methodology (ESM) was employed to capture daily variations in mood and substance use, and multilevel modeling techniques were used to parse between- versus within-person differences in risk for use. Findings supported between-person hypotheses that higher levels of negative affect and lower levels of friendship intimacy predicted greater substance use, and a consistent trend indicated that friendship intimacy and close-friend drug use interact to predict substance use more generally (though not for self-medication). Risk and protective mechanisms emerged from this interaction such that the effect of friendship intimacy on adolescent use depends on the degree of close-friend drug use. More specific reformulations of the risk processes involving friendships and self-medication among younger youth are indicated.