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AbstractCOVID‐19 response offers a model to guide research and preventive interventions targeting adolescents, their families, and communities. My 2022 SRA Presidential Address posed: What if the COVID‐19 Response Served as a Guidepost for Future Research on Adolescence? Solution versus Problem‐Focused Agenda. Several "pandemics" were already underway, emerging from historic and contemporary events that threaten the safety and survival of human lives. The Multi‐Transgenerational Life Course Theoretical model was selected to demonstrate pathways through which the transmission of generational exposure to crisis and trauma impact adolescents' developmental trajectories. Recommendations to inform and guide an adolescent research rapid response agenda are proposed minds to advance equity and social justice can become realities.

This commentary reflects on research studies included in this special issue, Black Lives Matter! Systems of Oppression Affecting Black Youth. A key finding in these studies is significance of developmental and social behavioral sciences to center systemic racism and oppression in studies of Black youth to more fully understand and explain how contextual factors and processes impact their everyday life experiences. This collection of papers offers insights and recommendations of ways advance research studies by expanding research to include upstream policies and practices and explain their roles in perpetuating oppression and discrimination. Applying multi‐socio‐ecological theoretical frameworks may demonstrate effective pathways to reduce environmental toxins that hinder positive health and well‐being for adolescents, their families, and communities.

ObjectiveTo identify pathways through which African American families successfully negotiate and navigate stressful life events to facilitate positive family functioning, relationships, and healthy developmental outcomes in their children.BackgroundDespite the advancement of African Americans since passing of the 1965 Civil Rights Act, racism remains a major stressor that affects everyday life experiences of 21st‐century African American families. Little is known about the cascading effects of race‐related exposure on processes in African American families, nor about what promotes healthy functioning among African American families.MethodThree waves of data on 867 families participating in the Family and Community Health Study were analyzed to identify pathways that forecast family functioning and developmental outcomes of youth as they transitioned from middle childhood to late adolescence.ResultsStressful life events heightened maternal depression and anxiety, which were associated with a more cynical and hostile worldview and poorer quality of family relations. Parenting practices and family relationship quality were linked with children's self‐pride, which was closely associated with more optimistic worldview. Self‐pride was also associated with future aspirations among youth, and future‐oriented youth tended to engage in fewer self‐harm behaviors as they transitioned from middle childhood to early adolescence.ConclusionReframing one's life situation, despite exposure to racial discrimination, serves a protective function for African American families. Exerting a sense of agency, internal will, capacity, and strength are effective strategies to transcend adversities.ImplicationsThat positive worldview can render more manageable family outcomes for African Americans, regardless of socioeconomic status, is worth considering in research, clinical practice, and preventive interventions.

Results from this study of 1,666 African American high school graduates' life experiences showed that a significant proportion of adolescent mothers were more successful than conventional stereotypes suggest Several had obtained professional jobs, had middle-income status, and were pursuing additional educational training. The author used data from the National Survey of Family Growth Cycle IV to examine a sample stratified by sexual activity and fertility timing: 474 virgins (28.5%), 570 never-pregnants (34.1%), 65 ever-pregnants (4%), and 557 adolescent mothers (33.4%). Across groups, most of the women had never married, with virgins and adolescent mothers the least likely to be in marital relationships. Of the four groups, virgins reported higher educational, financial, and occupational advancement. Implications for future research, education, and policy are discussed.

Using data from the 1988 National Family Growth Cycle, IV, this study sought to identify specific individual, family, sociocultural, and social structure factors that influence pregnancy resolution decisions of first conception among African American and Hispanic adolescents aged 15 to 21 years. A hierarchial discriminant function analysis was used to determine the extent to which selected variables could distinguish those who terminated their first pregnancy from those who decided to carry their first pregnancies to full term. Three individual factors (age at conception, contraceptive behavior pattern, degree of self-disclosure about the pregnancy), two family-level variables (family sexuality socialization, family income), and each of the selected social structure (access to sexual health care facilities) and sociocultural factors (religious affiliation and church attendance) were found to discriminant between the two groups. However, the discriminating power of these variables differed depending on race/ethnicity.

This article explored the implications of diverse family structures on adolescents' adjustment, with an emphasis on whether and, if so, how diverse family structures influence and predict developmental outcomes. Family relationships within the family unit are a stronger predictor of adolescents' development than the particular family structure. Transitions in families that result in notable reductions in effective parenting practices and economic well‐being will negatively affect youth, regardless of family structure. Family processes that promote optimal growth and development among youth in traditional two‐parent, heterosexual households work similarly for those growing up in nontraditional family structures. A conceptual model to advance this field of research is offered, and implications for research and policy are discussed.

Risk and protective factors were examined to identify processes in rural, single-parent, Black families that are linked with positive child outcomes. Results can be linked to the competency and resiliency models. Protective domains promoted greater child selfregulation, with parenting protective factors promoting greater self-regulation than child and community protection. Maternal risk had the greatest negative effect on child selfworth. Results also revealed that protective factors moderate the relationship between risk factors and child outcomes. The association between risk factors and self-regulation was low when protection was high and was significant when protection was low. Furthermore, protective factors seem to insulate boys in high-risk settings more than girls in similar environments. These findings highlight the important role of protective factors in promoting successful development of Black children reared in economically stressed rural, single-parent families and the extent to which protective factors insulate and buffer risk factors that might otherwise compromise these children's development.

This study examines the extent to which participating in a hospital-based home visiting program predicted positive outcomes for adolescent mothers and their children. Based on data obtained from 51 African American economically stressed mothers, results revealed that those participating in the program were less likely to have subsequent pregnancies and sought more medical care for their children, resulting in healthier babies. Significant influence of program participation on incidence of child abuse and neglect was not found. Findings from the study have implications for public policy, education, and prevention program development.

Health inequities, social determinants, and intersectionality / Nancy Lopez and Vivian L. Gadsden -- Life span and legal/policy research as dual focuses for identifying and implementing opportunities to realize health equity / Patrick H. Tolan, Velma McBride Murry, Angela Diaz, and Robert Seidel -- Challenges and promise of health equity for native Hawaiians / Noreen Mokuau, Patrick H. DeLeon, Joseph Keawe'aimoku Kaholokula, Sade Soares, Joann U. Tsark, And Coti Haia -- Expulsion and suspension in early education as matters of social justice and health equity / Shantel E. Meek and Walter S. Gilliam -- Stories about black men in the media and their consequesnces for health / Karen E. Dill-Shackleford, Srividya Ramasubramanian, and Lawrence M. Drake II -- The character assassination of black males : some consequences for research in public health / Alford Young, Jr -- Promoting positive development, health, and social justice through dismantling genetic determinism / Richard M. Lerner -- Principles of adolescent/young-adult-friendly care : contribution to reducing health disparities and increasing health equity / Angela Diaz and Ken Peake -- Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in African American communities : continuing the quest for prevention / Carl C. Bell -- Crisis urgent dispatch : calling on leadership to respond to violence in black neighborhoods / Sharon Toomer and Raquel Mack -- Lessons for health equity : military medicine as a window to universal health insurance / Jeff Hutchinson, Raquel Mack, Tracey Perez Koehlmoos, and Patrick H. DeLeon -- Philosophical perspectives on social justice : a framework for discussing a children, youth, and families health policy/research agenda / Robert Seidel, Patrick H. Tolan, Velma McBride Murry, and Angela Diaz

AbstractMuch of what happens inside Black families involves spillover effects and consequences of macro‐level stressors. Racism is a major stressor that cascades through Black families' lives, with detrimental consequences for their everyday life experiences. To understand ways in which Black families successfully navigate social, environment, and cultural pressures and constraints, we sought to gain insight into these processes by conducting a systematic, deep excavation, in order to (a) critically examine the adequacy and accuracy of traditional frameworks used to study stress in Black American families, (b) determine whether the studies of stress in Black families in the era of the first Black family in the White House stimulated new areas of research, and (c) advance the field of stress research in general and for Black Americans, in particular, by proposing a heuristic model anchored in a historical, contextual, life‐span perspective, with emphasis on culturally specific strengths‐based coping adaptation.

Functional changes in rural African American single‐mother‐headed families after the implementation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families were explored from an ecological risk–protection perspective. The sample included 96 single mothers who received government assistance and their 10‐ or 11‐year‐old children. Links among maternal employment status, mothers' physical health and psychological functioning, parenting, and children's attributions about the causes of poverty were examined. Maternal psychological distress was linked with children's attributions about the causes of poverty, both directly and indirectly through its association with parenting. Children who did not attribute poverty to social causes had higher academic goals than did those who attributed poverty to social, economic, or political barriers. Further research is needed on barriers to employment and the influence of maternal psychological functioning on parenting.