Dyadic and Dynamic Relationships: An Extension of the SES-Health Framework

Dana Garbarski, University of Wisconsin at Madison

In order to fully explicate the relationship between individual socioeconomic status (SES) and health, the dyadic association between parent-child SES and health should be examined to account for how child health may affect parental SES and health. Prior research finds that poor child health may present an additional risk for maternal health, mental health, and SES. Using nationally representative longitudinal data of mother-child dyads from the NLSY 1979 cohort, this analysis expands upon prior research by using regression analyses to explore the extent to which child health modifies the effect of maternal SES on maternal health. This analysis also expands upon prior research by dynamically defining child health by using growth mixture modeling to explore how child health trajectories interact with maternal SES to affect maternal health, demonstrating whether child health has a cumulative exposure relationship to subsequent maternal outcomes.