Associations Among Early Life Adversity, Preventive Intervention, and Adult Depressive Symptoms

INTRODUCTION: Previous research has established early life adversity (e.g., poverty, maltreatment) as a significant risk factor for later psychological problems. Participation in preventive intervention programs, such as the large-scale Child-Parent Center (CPC) preschool program, has been linked with reductions in psychological symptoms among high-risk populations (Reynolds et al., 2007). Less research, however, has studied whether these impacts differ among participant subgroups, such as those affected by severe levels of early adversity. This is a critical research area given the social and economic burdens associated with psychological problems (e.g., psychiatric care, unstable employment) that disproportionately affect severe risk populations. This study helps address these gaps by studying whether preschool CPC participation exerts differential impacts on adult depressive symptoms for participants affected by different rates of early risk factors.

METHOD: Using data from the Chicago Longitudinal Study, we examined whether early childhood risk variables moderate the effects of CPC participation on adult depressive symptoms. Data were analyzed on 1134 participants who completed interviews on wellbeing at ages 22-24. CPC preschool participation was the explanatory variable. The non-CPC comparison group matched participants on family and school characteristics (Reynolds et al., 2007). Covariates included gender, census records of neighborhood poverty levels, racial/ethnic minority status, and continued CPC participation between Grades K-3. An early childhood family risk index (by age 3, upon CPC entry) was also included (e.g., low birth weight; having a single, unemployed, and/or non-high school graduate parent). Participants with 4+ early risk factors were categorized as severe risk. The outcome variable was adult depressive symptoms, as assessed by self-reports on the Brief Symptom Inventory at ages 22-24.

RESULTS: Logistic regression analyses indicated that participants affected by severe early risk were 42.7% more likely to exhibit depressive symptoms in adulthood (Exp(B) = .573, p = .002), when controlling for the aforementioned covariates. Each individual risk factor increased the risk of adult depressive symptoms by 2.6 points. Preschool CPC participants were 4.5 times less likely to report depressive symptoms in adulthood than non-CPC control subjects (p = .035). However, the impact of CPC participation on adult depressive outcomes was not significantly different for participants affected by severe versus non-severe risk.

CONCLUSIONS: This study’s preliminary results affirm the links between early risk, preventive intervention, and later psychological functioning. They also suggest that it may be beneficial for early childhood programs to systematically identify participants affected by severe levels of early adversity, and to provide them with targeted psychological support services. Upcoming analyses will parse out the effects of preschool CPC participation on adult psychological symptoms among subgroups affected by different types of early adversity. Relations between CPC participation, adult psychological symptoms, and adult employment will also be examined.