Family Environment, Neurodevelopmental Risk, and the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Initiative: Looking Back and Moving Forward

Abstract

The family environment, with all its complexity and diverse components, plays a critical role in shaping neurodevelopmental outcomes in children. Herein we review several domains of the family environment (family socioeconomic status, family composition and home environment, parenting behaviors and interaction styles, parental mental health and functioning, and parental substance use) and discuss how these domains influence neurodevelopment, with particular emphasis on mental health outcomes. We also highlight a new initiative launched by the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program. We discuss the role that ECHO will play in advancing our understanding of the impact of the family environment on children's risk for psychiatric outcomes. Lastly, we conclude with important unanswered questions and controversies in this area of research, highlighting how ECHO will contribute to resolving these gaps in our understanding, clarifying relationships between the family environment and children's mental health.

The Effect of Parenting Quality on Child Development at 36–48 Months in China’s Urban Area: Evidence from a Birth Cohort Study

“…Suspected development delay was the dependent variable, and independent variables were parenting quality and other factors. The potential factors in both analyses were child gender, family income, parental education, delivery mode, child order, and paternal smoking during pregnancy [23,26,27]. The above analyses were performed in SPSS version 22 (IBM, New York, NY, USA).…”

“…However, the present study was subject to certain limitations. First, there exists evidence that parenting quality would change over time; one explanation may be the bidirectional nature of parenting behavior and child development [27,31]. Further evidence from cohort studies and interventional studies is needed to consider the change in parenting quality.…”

Principles for Guiding the Selection of Early Childhood Neurodevelopmental Risk and Resilience Measures: HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study as an Exemplar

“…However, we underscore that nuanced characterization of risk and resilience patterns cannot possibly be achieved without in-depth assessment of broader family and ecological and historical context. Of special salience to resilience processes are moderating influences of promotive processes extrinsic to the child, such as responsive parenting, and interconnected family and community networks (Bush et al, 2020 ; Masten & Motti-Stefanidi, 2020 ; McLaughlin, 2016 ; Wakschlag et al, 2011 ; Waller et al, 2015 ). The importance of capturing these domains has been central to the HBCD planning process, has been covered by other HBCD Planning Phase Workgroups, and is beyond the scope of this paper.…”

“…Examining positive trajectories and resilience promoting factors can help identify leverage points for intervention. We can also learn from other large-scale studies such as ECHO (Blackwell et al, 2018 ; Bush et al, 2020 ) and ABCD (Luciana et al, 2018 ). We had workgroup members with experience on such studies, and with other multi-site, longitudinal studies and their perspectives were invaluable in preparing our recommendations.…”

The long-term associations between parental behaviors, cognitive function and brain activation in adolescence

“…This network is known for its role in response inhibition and cognitive function 14 . Accumulating evidence shows that the CFP network activates during tasks that require flexible control of goal-directed behavior as well as when adjusting cognitive responses to environmental cues 15 , behavioral constructs that are reduced in youth exposed to aversive parental behavior 16 . Conversely, adolescents who receive higher-levels of parental warmth show better academic performance and inhibitory control during childhood 17 , 18 .…”