On the Interplay among Psychosocial, Biological, and Medical Factors in Different Populations: Charting Developmental Interdependencies and Trajectories from Childhood through Emerging Adulthood

The long-term purpose of the research program is to expand our understanding of the various processes linking psychosocial functioning to several physical and medical parameters from childhood through emerging adulthood in different community and clinical populations. Such a developmental focus on the interface between normative psychosocial issues and physical or medical outcomes is of critical importance in understanding why certain individuals achieve good well-being and health, whereas others find themselves on a complex pathway to ill-being and disease. An explicitly developmental approach will be applied in that the main focus will be on how children, adolescents, and emerging adults develop across time and how various psychosocial, medical, and physical variables develop in tandem. Several longitudinal data-collections will be initiated and used. The main purpose of the present program is: (1) to chart the multifinality of development; to identify antecedents of these multiple pathways; to isolate both protective and risk factors setting individuals on certain life pathways; and to focus on possible mechanisms; and (2) to investigate the interrelationships between psychosocial factors and fysieke and medical illness factors in adolescents and emerging adults with chronic illness; to chart how these factors influence each other across time; and to identify risk and protective factors affecting treatment adherence and illness outcomes and progression.