The American Public Health Association's Public Health Newswire recently featured FMSC PhD student Kecia Ellick in their review of 2016 annual meeting poster presentations. Ellick's poster, “Mothers' Attachment Style and Child Behavioral Outcomes for Teen Parent Families” summarized her study of adolescent mothers over a two-year period. Mothers were interviewed when their infants were 2 months old, and again at 12 and 24 months. Her study confirmed a relationship between anxious attachment styles and internalizing behaviors by teen mothers, mediated by parenting stress. Ellick concluded that stress prevention and intervention strategies should consider a range of teen mothers' attachment styles. Ellick stated that adolescents' needs are often overlooked in program design and that because “the teen mother is still a developing individual, we have to focus on her continued psycho-social development.”
The FMSC department is most proud of Kecia's presentation at APHA and looks forward to supporting her continuing research in this area. Congratulations, Kecia!