Grandparent health &loss of contact with grandchildren

University Of Southern California, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by candidate): This study will examine grandparents' emotional and physical health consequences resulting from the loss or reduction in contact with their grandchildren due to parental divorce, family feud, or death/illness of an adult child. Grandparenting role salience will be evaluated as a mediator of the effects of loss on health through a weakening of subjective role identification. Additionally, it will be determined if the external (social support) and internal (locus of control) resources of the grandparent moderate he negative health outcomes for grandparents. Solidarity and conflict between grandparents and their adult children (parents of their grandchildren) will be examined for the underlying family dynamics that serve as risk factors for the loss of contact with grandchildren. Longitudinal survey data and multivariate models of analyses will be used in defining the risk factors for grandparents. A small body of work in Canada and the UK have found curtailed contact with grandchildren to be largely a hidden source of misery affecting many thousands of grandparents. If the same negative health consequences are found for American grandparents, this will highlight the unique frustrations and difficulties experienced by a growing number of potentially at-risk individuals, and raise important family policy considerations regarding grandparent rights. By examining how consequences vary with characteristics of grandparents, and in relation to intergenerational family solidarity and conflict, these findings will have implications for the forms intervention services should take.