Publications & Projects


publication

Childhood Maltreatment and DNA Methylation: A Systematic Review

Childhood Maltreatment and DNA Methylation: A Systematic Review

Rubens, M., Bruenig, D., Adams, J. A. M., Suresh, S. M., Sathyanarayanan, A., Haslam, D., Shenk, C. E., Mathews, B., & Mehta, D. (in press). 

publication

Cortisol trajectories measured prospectively across thirty years of female development following exposure to childhood sexual abuse: Moderation by epigenetic age acceleration at midlife.

Cortisol trajectories measured prospectively across thirty years of female development following exposure to childhood sexual abuse: Moderation by epigenetic age acceleration at midlife.

Shenk, C.E., Felt, J.M.*, Ram, N., O’Donnell, K.J., Sliwinski, M.J., Pokhvisneva, I., Benson, L., Meaney, M.J., Putnam, F.W., Noll, J.G. (2022). Psychoneuroendocrinology, 136, PMCID: PMC8724404.

publication

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia change during Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Results from a randomized controlled feasibility trial.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia change during Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Results from a randomized controlled feasibility trial.

publication

Behavioral and pharmacological interventions for the prevention and treatment of psychiatric disorders with children exposed to maltreatment.

Behavioral and pharmacological interventions for the prevention and treatment of psychiatric disorders with children exposed to maltreatment.

project

Caregiver-Child Communication (C3) to Promote Resilience following Child-Maltreatment

Caregiver-Child Communication (C3) to Promote Resilience following Child-Maltreatment

The C3 Project is supported by an NIH P50 Center Grant (P50HD089922; Noll, PI) that is conducting a multi-wave, prospective cohort study, the Child Health Study (CHS; Shenk, Co-I), examining the impact of child maltreatment on multiple biological systems and subsequent pediatric health. One of Shenk Lab's contributions to the CHS is the use of observational methods to quantify caregiver-child dyadic communication and establish how specific patterns of communication are involved in promoting resilience to adverse health following exposure to child maltreatment.

Caregivers and their children participating in the CHS (N=600 and counting!) complete three separate interaction tasks designed to promote relationship quality and dyadic problem-solving. Caregiver-child communication is then sampled using a multilevel, intensive longitudinal design, where specific processes are quantified in 30-second epochs to estimate dynamic change within and across tasks. Furthermore, families in the CHS complete waves of data collection every two years with the same three interaction tasks administered at each wave, allowing for inferences about how specific caregiver-child communication patterns change from childhood to adulthood and in response to child maltreatment.

Following a deep phenotyping and multiple levels of analysis approach, data obtained from these observational methods will ultimately be included with biological, behavioral, and other environmental mechanisms of adverse health being measured in the CHS, such as structural and functional MRI, genome-wide DNA methylation, immune function, cognitive development, psychiatric function, and more. The data generated from the C3 project will inform models of how the experience of pediatric trauma “gets under the skin” and whether parent-child communication can facilitate reductions in risk for adverse health.

T32 Fellows will have the opportunity to learn and apply two different observational coding paradigms for quantifying caregiver behaviors and child affect (positive and negative). Research and statistical methods where Fellows can receive training include: observational methods, measuring inter-rater reliability, multi-level modeling, and dynamic systems modeling.

publication

Assembling a cohort for in-depth, longitudinal assessments of the biological embedding of child maltreatment: Methods, complexities, and lessons learned

Assembling a cohort for in-depth, longitudinal assessments of the biological embedding of child maltreatment: Methods, complexities, and lessons learned

publication

Informant Discrepancies in Child Maltreatment Reporting: A Systematic Review

Informant Discrepancies in Child Maltreatment Reporting: A Systematic Review

New systematic review by PSU Psychology graduate student Daryl Cooley and her advisor and CMSN faculty, Dr. Yo Jackson, shows consistent disagreement between reporters (e.g., official case file and youth self-report) on what kinds of child abuse a given child has experienced –  could be important for knowing how to intervene.

publication

The first NIH Capstone Center for Child Maltreatment: Assembling a cohort for in-depth, longitudinal assessments of the biological embedding of child maltreatment

The first NIH Capstone Center for Child Maltreatment: Assembling a cohort for in-depth, longitudinal assessments of the biological embedding of child maltreatment

publication

Child maltreatment and substance use in emerging adulthood: Internalizing and externalizing behaviors at the transition to adolescence as indirect pathways

Child maltreatment and substance use in emerging adulthood: Internalizing and externalizing behaviors at the transition to adolescence as indirect pathways

publication

Epigenetic age acceleration and risk for post-traumatic stress disorder following exposure to substantiated child maltreatment

Epigenetic age acceleration and risk for post-traumatic stress disorder following exposure to substantiated child maltreatment

publication

Integrating animal-assisted therapy into TF-CBT for abused youth with PTSD: A randomized controlled feasibility trial

Integrating animal-assisted therapy into TF-CBT for abused youth with PTSD: A randomized controlled feasibility trial

publication

Child maltreatment and adolescent externalizing behavior: Examining the indirect and cross-lagged pathways of prosocial peer activities

Child maltreatment and adolescent externalizing behavior: Examining the indirect and cross-lagged pathways of prosocial peer activities

publication

An observational study of Internet behaviors for adolescent females following sexual abuse

An observational study of Internet behaviors for adolescent females following sexual abuse

publication

Controlling contamination in child maltreatment research: Impact on effect size estimates for child behavior problems measured throughout childhood and adolescence

Controlling contamination in child maltreatment research: Impact on effect size estimates for child behavior problems measured throughout childhood and adolescence

Child Maltreatment Solutions Network at Penn State
project

Controlling Contamination Bias in Child Maltreatment Research

Controlling Contamination Bias in Child Maltreatment Research

Contamination occurs in many different experimental designs outside the field of child maltreatment. In this project, contamination refers to the presence of child maltreatment in already established, non-child maltreatment comparison conditions. Research has shown that failure to detect and control contamination biases effect size estimates for child maltreatment outcomes and leads to variation in the significance and magnitude of those estimates within and across studies, increasing the chances of discovery and replication failures. The Detecting and Controlling Contamination Bias

Project (Shenk, PI; Shores, Ram, & Fisher Co-I’s) is supported by awards from the National Institutes of Health (R03HD104739) and the National Science Foundation (BCS-2041333) examining contamination in prospective cohort studies of child maltreatment. The current project is using existing data from two large, multi-wave, prospective cohort studies of confirmed child maltreatment, the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN; N=1354) and the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being-II (NSCAW-II; N=5872), to accomplish two specific aims: 1) estimate the prevalence of contamination, defined as any self- or caregiver-reported instance of child maltreatment by members of the established comparison condition, and 2) test different statistical approaches for reducing bias in risk estimates for child behavior problems attributable to contamination. Finally, this project will conduct extensive data simulations based on these results to extend inferences across different research conditions, including variations in sample size, contamination prevalence, statistical power, and effect size magnitude. The end product of this project will be to disseminate to the larger scientific field the optimal methods for detecting and controlling contamination bias across a range of research conditions in order to minimize variation in the significance and magnitude of effect size estimates reported across prospective studies.

T32 Fellows will have the opportunity to generate, execute, and report results from statistical models aiming to establish the optimal detection and control of contamination. Statistical models where Fellows can receive training include, multi-level modeling, propensity score matching, and synthetic controls.

Child Maltreatment Solutions Network at Penn State
publication

Achieving the goals of translational science in public health intervention research: The multiphase optimization strategy (MOST)

Achieving the goals of translational science in public health intervention research: The multiphase optimization strategy (MOST)

Child Maltreatment Solutions Network at Penn State
publication

Provider attitudes and self-efficacy when delivering a child sexual abuse prevention module: An exploratory study

Provider attitudes and self-efficacy when delivering a child sexual abuse prevention module: An exploratory study

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