Ensuring access to safe and affordable recreational spaces is vital for promoting well-being, especially in underserved communities facing barriers to physical activity. Shared use agreements, where school facilities are open for public use, offer a promising solution; yet limited research has examined how to maximize usage of these spaces. Framed under Social Cognitive Theory in a socioecological model, this dissertation comprises three studies contributing to this knowledge base to foster active, healthy communities. The first study was a scoping review of usage and physical activity behavior in school shared use spaces, highlighting the potential of shared use agreements to promote physical activity, especially when they included organized activities or space renovations. The study underscores the need for robust evaluations, gender- and population-sensitive interventions, and community engagement to maximize impact. The second study, adopting a pre/post, cross-sectional approach, assessed the impact of a multicomponent intervention on perceptions and usage of a school shared use path in South Phoenix (AZ). No statistically significant changes in usage were observed over time; however, access was a significant predictor of usage. Gender (female, negative) and safety perceptions (positive) were also identified as salient predictors of usage. The findings highlight the critical role of awareness (i.e., perceived access) in enhancing usage of school shared use spaces. The third study was a longitudinal natural experiment, with observational assessments of usage and related physical activity on one school shared use path over 12 months at an elementary school in South Phoenix (AZ). Moderate increases in usage over time were attributed to promotional efforts, social programming, and environmental modifications. Most users (>70%) of the path were observed walking, and were male, Hispanic, and adult. The study suggests that demographic disparities may exist. Implementing broader engagement strategies and understanding safety perceptions may facilitate more representative usage. Collectively, this dissertation provides a comprehensive evaluation of the potential of school shared use spaces to promote physical activity, while underscoring the importance of understanding complex factors influencing the usage of these spaces. Ultimately, the findings contribute knowledge to enhancing the usage of school shared use spaces, adding to the literature on their significance in promoting physical activity and community health, particularly in underserved regions.

Depression and anxiety are among the most prevalent psychiatric disorders for adults and adolescents and can be intergenerationally transmitted from parents to their children. Moreover, depressive and anxiety disorders often develop during adolescence. Additionally, family environment and the parent-child relationship are significant predictors of mental health among adolescents. Yet, few studies have considered how adolescent depression and anxiety problems may influence the family environment and mental health of parents. Moreover, even fewer studies have examined how depressive and anxious intergenerational pathways may vary by racial/ethnic status. As such, bidirectional effects of parent and adolescent depressive and anxiety problems were investigated using data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) study at Time 1 (T1)(Mage = 9.92, n=11,861), Time 2 (T2), and Time 3 (T3). Each follow-up was approximately one-year apart. Multiple path analysis models were used to examined bidirectional associations between parent and adolescent A) depressive problems B) anxiety problems and C) depressive and anxiety problems from T1 to T3 and how family conflict and adolescent-reported parental acceptance at T2 mediated these associations. Measurement invariance testing and multigroup analyses were conducted across non-Hispanic White, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic Black participants to examine if depressive and anxious pathways or measurement differed by racial-ethnic status. Findings revealed that both adolescent and parent depression problems at T1 predicted increases in depression at T3. Greater adolescent or parent anxiety problems at T1 predicted increases in adolescent and parent anxiety problems at T3. Greater family conflict and lower perceived parental acceptance at T2 predicted increases in adolescent depressive problems but did not predict adolescent anxiety problems over time. Parental depressive and anxiety problems at T1 did not predict adolescent-reported parental acceptance at T2 but did predict greater family conflict. Measurement noninvariance was found for family conflict and adolescent depressive problems. Multigroup analyses revealed that the association between both depressive and anxiety problems from T1 to T3 was weaker among Black adolescents compared to White and Hispanic adolescents. In summary, this research contributes valuable insights into the measurement of and relationship between parent and adolescent mental health, family dynamics, and adolescent perceived parental acceptance.

Guided by the Risky Families model and Daily Process methods, the present study examined how daily stressors are related to emotional well-being at the between- and within-person levels among adolescent grandchildren raised by grandmothers. This study also examined whether risk (i.e., adverse childhood experiences/ACES) and resilience (i.e., socio-emotional skills) factors were linked to differences in daily well-being, stressor exposure, and emotional reactivity, and evaluated the efficacy of an online social intelligence training (SIT) program on daily stressor-emotion dynamics. Data came from a subsample (n = 188) of custodial adolescents who participated in an attention-controlled randomized clinical trial and completed 14-day daily surveys prior to and following intervention. Analyses were conducted with dynamic structural equation modeling. Daily stressors, on average, and experiencing above average stressors, were associated with higher negative emotions and lower positive emotions and social connection. Those with more ACEs, on average, reported higher daily stressors and worse well-being, whereas those with higher socio-emotional skills, on average, reported lower daily stressors and better well-being. At the within-person level, more ACEs were associated with higher daily negative emotions. Nonverbal processing was linked to higher daily positive emotions and social connection. Conversational skills were associated with higher daily positive emotions and social connection, and lower, more inert daily negative emotions. Neither ACEs nor socio-emotional skills were associated with within-person reactivity to stressors. Also, the SIT program did not demonstrate efficacy for any outcome. My discussion focused on how findings extend the literature on custodial adolescents by showing that daily stressors impact well-being, offer knowledge of how ACEs and socio-emotional skills shape daily stressor-emotion dynamics, and considers reasons why the online, self-guided SIT program failed to show efficacy on key outcomes.

Elevated rates of exposure to multi-level chronic stressors (e.g., poverty, discrimination, acculturative stress) place low-income, Mexican-origin individuals in the United States at elevated risk for adverse psychological and physical health across the lifespan. Despite exposure to contextual risk factors, many individuals maintain positive biobehavioral health. In particular, despite greater exposure to sociodemographic risk factors, more recently immigrated Mexican-origin individuals in the U.S. may demonstrate more positive biobehavioral health, warranting consideration of specific cultural values and practices that confer and maintain positive health across generations. Parental cultural socialization is an understudied mechanism in promotive pathways of parent-child processes and child biobehavioral health. Across three generations of Mexican-origin families in the United States – maternal grandmothers, mothers, children – the current study (1) identified a multidimensional measure of child biobehavioral health across psychological and biological indicators, (2) evaluated the intergenerational transmission of grandmother-mother cultural socialization, (3) evaluated the effect of maternal cultural socialization on child-perceived parenting and child biobehavioral health, and (4) evaluated child cultural orientation as a moderator of the effect of maternal cultural socialization on child-perceived parenting and child biobehavioral health. Findings highlight the complex and nuanced relations among parental cultural socialization, individual cultural orientation, child perceptions of parenting, and child biobehavioral health among low-income, Mexican-origin families in the United States.

Young children reared in a dual language environment typically experience and learn a heritage and societal language and culture from their caregivers. Given that culture and language use are strongly intertwined, recent research has begun to explore caregiver cultural orientation as a potential influence on children’s dual language development but currently disregards whether cultural orientation influences language development directly and indirectly through caregiver language input. This longitudinal study examines a sample of Mexican-American mothers and their children (N=299) from low-income households to examine 1) how maternal language input at child age 24 months and children’s dual language knowledge at 36 months are associated; and 2) whether maternal language input mediates the link between maternal cultural orientation at child age 9 months and children’s dual language knowledge. Results showed that mothers’ quantitative and qualitative language features were strongly correlated within a language and were positively linked with children’s knowledge in the corresponding language. The path analysis revealed that maternal Anglo cultural orientation indirectly predicted children’s English vocabulary scores mediated by maternal English language input, whereas Spanish language input did not mediate the link between mothers’ Mexican cultural orientation and children’s Spanish knowledge. This study provides novel insights into the cascading effects of infants’ early cultural and language environments on their emerging dual language skills.

The bilingual experience is an often-studied multivariate phenomenon with a heterogeneous population that is often described using subtypes of bilingualism. “Bilingualism” as well as its subtypes lack consistent definitions and often share overlapping features, requiring researchers to measure a number of aspects of the bilingual experience. Different variables have been operationalized to quantify the language proficiencies, use, and histories of bilinguals, but the combination of these variables and their contributions to these subtypes often vary between studies on bilingualism. Research supports that these variables have an influence not only on bilingual classification, but also on non-linguistic outcomes including perceptions of self-worth and bicultural identification. To date, there is a lack of research comparing the quantification of these bilingual subtypes and these non-linguistic outcomes, despite research supporting the need to address both. Person-centered approaches such as latent profile analysis (LPA) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) have been applied to describe other multivariate constructs with heterogeneous populations, but these applications have yet to be used with bilingualism. The present study integrates models of bilingualism with these analytic methods in order to quantitatively identify latent profiles of bilinguals, describe the sets of conditions that define these subtypes, and to characterize the subjective experiences that differentiate these subtypes. The first study uses an existing data set of participants who completed the Language and Social Background Questionnaire (LSBQ) and performs LPA and fsQCA, identifying latent profiles and the sets of conditions that these subtypes. The following studies use a second set of bilinguals who also completed the LSBQ as well as a supplementary questionnaire, characterizing their identification with biculturalism and their feelings of self-worth. The analyses are repeated with these data to describe the profiles within these data and the subjective experiences in common. Finally, all analyses are repeated with the combined datasets to develop a final model of bilingual subtypes, describing the differences in language use and history within each subtype. Results demonstrate that latent models can be used to consistently characterize bilingual subtypes, while also providing additional information about the relationship between individual bilingual history and attitudes towards cultural identification.

Both subjective response to alcohol and acute tolerance possess unique biphasic relations with the blood alcohol concentration curve. However, prior work has generally failed to examine shared relations between the two constructs and has yet to consider the full valence by arousal affective space of subjective response, nor individual differences in metabolism or peak levels of subjective intoxication. As such, the present study sought to characterize acute tolerance to subjective response in addition to examining relations between acute tolerance, subjective response, and related outcomes. Participants (N=258) were randomly assigned to receive alcohol (target blood alcohol concentration = .08 g%) as part of a large placebo-controlled alcohol administration study. Participant family history of alcohol use problems and personal history of alcohol use were collected at baseline. Subjective response to alcohol was assessed across the full valence by arousal affective space at equivalent points on the ascending and descending limbs of the blood alcohol concentration curve. Latent change scores were calculated to characterize the development of acute tolerance, and path analyses tested relations between acute tolerance to subjective response, concurrent patterns of alcohol use, and negative alcohol-related consequences. Age, sex, race/ethnicity, and drinking context were included as covariates. Acute tolerance to low arousal positive (i.e., relaxed, mellow) effects were found to be inversely related to negative consequences such that a maintenance of low arousal positive effects was associated with more negative consequences. The amount of time elapsed between measurements was found to be significantly related to the development of acute tolerance to high arousal positive (i.e., talkative, stimulated) effects, such that more time between measurements was related to a greater decrease in high arousal positive effects. Peak high arousal positive effects were found to be related to increased drinking and indirectly related to more negative consequences via drinking, whereas high arousal negative was protective against increased drinking and negative consequences. Results suggest that a maintenance of negatively reinforcing effects across the blood alcohol concentration curve may confer risk for negative consequences. Results also suggest that considering individual differences in alcohol metabolism may be useful in understanding alcohol’s rewarding, stimulating effects.

Mediation analysis is integral to psychology, investigating human behavior’s causal mechanisms. The diversity of explanations for human behavior has implications for the estimation and interpretation of statistical mediation models. Individuals can have similar observed outcomes while undergoing different causal processes or different observed outcomes while receiving the same treatment. Researchers can employ diverse strategies when studying individual differences in multiple mediation pathways, including individual fit measures and analysis of residuals. This dissertation investigates the use of individual residuals and fit measures to identify individual differences in multiple mediation pathways. More specifically, this study focuses on mediation model residuals in a heterogeneous population in which some people experience indirect effects through one mediator and others experience indirect effects through a different mediator. A simulation study investigates 162 conditions defined by effect size and sample size for three proposed methods: residual differences, delta z, and generalized Cook’s distance. Results indicate that analogs of Type 1 error rates are generally acceptable for the method of residual differences, but statistical power is limited. Likewise, neither delta z nor gCd could reliably distinguish between contrasts that had true effects and those that did not. The outcomes of this study reveal the potential for statistical measures of individual mediation. However, limitations related to unequal subpopulation variances, multiple dependent variables, the inherent relationship between direct effects and unestimated indirect effects, and minimal contrast effects require more research to develop a simple method that researchers can use on single data sets.

It is well known that neighborhood contexts form an integral part in shaping development across the lifespan. At the same time, it is recognized that there is variability in the manner with which the neighborhood context is associated with pertinent outcomes, such as mental health and psychological well-being. In this regard, empirical research has differentiated between subjective and objective neighborhood indicators. Midlife is a critical life stage due to middle-aged adults being “sandwiched” between generations and being firmly entrenched in the workforce; in this regard, the neighborhood context could play a role in shaping mental health and psychological well-being in midlife. Of importance is determining which factors account for development in midlife, and whether individuals can find protective factors in order to preserve their health and psychological wellbeing into older adulthood. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine whether and how neighborhood context is associated with mental health and psychological well-being in midlife. The first study examined whether the subjective and objective neighborhood context moderates the impact of monthly adversity on mental health and psychological well-being in midlife. The second study aimed to examine whether and which potentially relevant latent factors exist among subjective and objective neighborhood indicators in a sample of middle-aged adults from the Phoenix Metropolitan area. Taken together, the results of these studies provide evidence that neighborhood context is indeed relevant resource for middle-aged adults. Specifically, in Paper 1, found that individuals who live in neighborhoods with less disorder show fewer steep declines in mental health and well-being in months when an adversity was reported. Paper 2 found that that there are distinct latent constructs that were primarily comprised of factors related to resource and prosperity and financial strain for the objective indicators. For subjective perceptions factors comprised neighborhood insights. These findings contribute to the literature on potential ways in which neighborhood context may serve as a resource and serve as the groundwork for future studies that test mechanisms linking the neighborhood context to mental health and well-being in midlife and inform future intervention studies.

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) causes immense global burden and has a significant impact on economic and societal functioning. Efficacious treatments for AUDs have been well-established within the literature, however the most commonly accessed treatments for AUD are alcohol-related services, such as self-help groups, outpatient clinics, and detoxification centers. Though studies suggest these services are effective at treating AUDs, there are numerous differences between individuals who receive alcohol-related services and individuals who do not, causing selection bias. Furthermore, current studies of alcohol-related services frequently define recovery outcomes as abstinence, which reduces variability in viable recovery outcomes, such as reduction of drinking behaviors. In addition, reduction in drinking and alcohol-related problems should theoretically have an impact on broader aspects of functioning, such as familial functioning. Improved familial context may reduce risk to family members, who are otherwise at heightened risk for emotional and behavioral problems when living with a family member with AUD. The current study investigated the effect of alcohol-related services on binary and continuous drinking outcomes after eliminating selection bias using multiple propensity score approaches, to identify the best methodology for a high-risk community sample of individuals with AUD. Propensity scores were created using logistic regression approaches and boosted regression trees. Matching, weighting, and subclassification were used, and matching was performed both using greedy and global approaches. Results suggested subclassification was the most successful method for real world alcohol-related services samples with moderate sample size. Moreover, findings demonstrated that boosted regression approaches were less successful than logistic regression approaches at minimizing the effects of selection bias on known confounding variables that are highly related to group selection. In addition, after removing the effects of selection bias, there were no significant difference between participants who received alcohol-related services and the comparison control group on drinking or family functioning, though both groups reduced drinking from pre- to post-alcohol-related services receipt. Findings suggest careful selection of quasi-experimental methods is warranted in real-world samples, to ensure optimal removal of selection bias. Moreover, future studies should continue to clarify the profile of individual that benefits from alcohol-related services to inform intervention efforts.