Health and Family Processes

HDFS faculty conduct research on reciprocal connections between family relationships and health across the lifespan. Some faculty focus on socio-emotional development in early childhood including infant emotional reactivity, parenting competence and parenting at risk, and how parenting affects infant and child functioning. Other faculty examine family processes that affect child and adolescent development, including whole-family, parent-child, sibling, and interparental dynamics. Another active area of research focuses on the ways in which intimate relationships in adulthood affect, and are affected by, the presence of mental or physical health problems in one member of a dyad or family system. Faculty in this area are also interested in the economics of investing in healthy development, including strengthening economic evaluations of preventive interventions.

HDFS faculty who study Health and Family Processes include:

Sunhye (Sunny) Bai

Daniel (Max) Crowley

Gregory M. Fosco

Steffany J. Fredman

Lynn M. Martire

Susan M. McHale

Kenneth Shores

Cynthia A. Stifter

Douglas M. Teti

Samantha Tornello