Abstract
Objective
To investigate whether higher levels of childhood family connection were associated
with greater adult flourishing and if this association was present across levels of
adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and childhood socioeconomic disadvantage (SED).
Methods
We pooled cross-sectional data from telephone and mailed surveys in the Midlife in
the United States study that were collected from 2 nationally representative cohorts
(2004–06 and 2011–14) of English-speaking, US adults, aged 25 to 74 years. Adult flourishing
z score, standardized to the study population, was created from Ryff's 42-item Psychological
Well-being Scale and quartiles of childhood family connection from a 7-item scale
assessing parental attention, affection, and communication during childhood.
Results
Data were analyzed for the 4199 (72.0% of 5834) participants with complete data. The
mean age of participants was 53.9 years and 85.4% were White. After adjusting for
covariates, including adult chronic disease, ACEs, and childhood and current SED,
mean (95% CI) flourishing z scores increased from the lowest to highest quartiles of family connection: −0.41
(−0.49, −0.33), −0.18 (−0.25, −0.12), −0.01 (−0.07, 0.06), and 0.25 (0.18, 0.32),
respectively. For each 1 SD increase in the family connection score, there was a 0.25
(95% CI, 0.20, 0.29) unit increase in the adjusted flourishing z score. This positive association was also present across levels of ACEs and childhood
SED.
Conclusions
Greater childhood family connection was associated with greater flourishing in US
adults across levels of childhood adversity. Supporting family connection in childhood
may influence flourishing decades later, even with early adversity.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 10, 2021
Accepted:
March 4,
2021
Received:
October 20,
2020
Footnotes
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Identification
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 by Academic Pediatric Association
