USA - Cross-cultural variation in the link between adolescent - parent mutual understanding and mental health: From idea to implementation

The intention with this transatlantic collaboration is to examine the role of socio-cultural factors in the development of resilience and psychiatric problems in adolescents. The focus is on the role of parents' and children's perception of the family rel ationships and functioning. The project is planned to include information from an ongoing longitudinal project in The U.S. National Institute of Health, NIH, and an upcoming longitudinal study in the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. The two studies have in common a focus on psychological development and resilience in children from middle childhood throughout adolescence. The database will include host youth and 4 different ethnic immigrant groups in Norway one of which is Indian, a sample of white Americans and Indian immigrants in The U.S., and a sample of Indian adolescents in India. This provides a unique opportunity to study developmental processes of psychopathology and resilience across cultures and under conditions of social mobility and cul tural change. The information can be of distinctive value for planning of family and health policy in general and in the three targeted countries in particular. The activities of this initial stage of the collaboration involve meetings to furhter plan t he design of the cross-cultural study and develop the measuring instruments. In particular, decisions about sample sizes and inclusion criteria has to be made. One of the challenges in the initial stages of cross-cultural studies involving different ethni c group is to translate and validate the measurements. The success of the study is based on this part of the planning being done carefully. With successful planning the resulting project will be at least a 5 year transatlantic collaborative effort to unde rstand some of the causes and processes underlying adolescents' mental health.