OBJECTIVE Functional disability and depressive symptoms are pressing public health challenges in China's aging society. This study examined their longitudinal associations within older couples. METHOD Dyadic data from the first three waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011-2015) were analyzed using cross-lagged actor-partner interdependence models. Functional disability was assessed using Basic Activities of Daily Living (BADL) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) scales. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. RESULTS The BADL and IADL models included 1,159 and 1,724 dyads, respectively. Functional disability and depressive symptoms were stable over time for both spouses. Within-person associations were generally bidirectional, except that wives' BADL disability did not predict their later depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms also predicted partners' later depressive symptoms in both directions. Three cross-domain partner associations were significant in the primary analyses, but several actor and partner associations became nonsignificant in complete-case analyses. CONCLUSIONS Functional disability and depressive symptoms were longitudinally interrelated within older Chinese couples. Some associations were sensitive to the treatment of missing data and warrant cautious interpretation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
OBJECTIVE Self-rated health (SRH)-the simple question "How would you generally rate your health?"-is one of the strongest known predictors of morbidity and mortality. Yet it remains unclear whether this single subjective evaluation also captures more common, everyday physical health experiences. Understanding whether SRH predicts everyday physical health would enable a more precise analysis of the mediators and moderators of this relationship, thereby extending our understanding of how subjective health evaluations unfold in everyday life. The present preregistered secondary analysis examined whether SRH prospectively predicts short-term physical symptoms and illness behavior in everyday life in the general population. METHOD Participants completed repeated online surveys over 8 weeks, reporting their SRH, physical symptoms, illness behavior, and psychological characteristics. RESULTS Cross-sectional analyses showed that SRH was strongly associated with physical symptoms, beyond demographics, diagnosed health conditions, and socioeconomic factors. Longitudinal cross-lagged models revealed that SRH prospectively predicted both physical symptoms and illness behavior at later follow-ups, whereas the reciprocal paths from symptoms and illness behavior to SRH were not statistically significant at any assessment. Exploratory analyses further revealed that the association between SRH and physical symptoms was moderated by mental resilience. CONCLUSIONS Together, these findings demonstrate that SRH captures not only long-term health risks but also short-term fluctuations in everyday physical health and illness behavior. Therefore, SRH may offer a simple tool for identifying individuals at risk for heightened physical symptom experiences and may serve as a potential target for interventions aimed at improving everyday health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Objective: Cross-sectional evidence suggests that loss of control eating (LOC; feeling unable to stop eating and/or control the type/amount of food eaten) relates to poorer cardiovascular health (CVH) behaviors during pregnancy. Longitudinal data and data on biomarkers are lacking and are needed to more comprehensively evaluate the impact of prenatal LOC on CVH across pregnancy. This study tested cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between prenatal LOC and CVH in pregnancy using all eight health behaviors and biomarkers comprising the standard and a pregnancy-adapted version of Life's Essential 8 (LE8), which accounts for the physiological adaptations/cardiovascular impacts of pregnancy. Method: Participants enrolled in a perinatal lifestyle intervention trial completed assessments in early (N = 265) and late (n = 166) pregnancy, M (SD) = 13.7 (2.7) and 36.6 (1.3) weeks' gestation, respectively. Measures of CVH metrics were used to calculate standard and pregnancy-adapted LE8 scores (range = 0-100; higher = better). LOC was self-reported in early pregnancy and dichotomized (0 = absent, 1 = present). Regression models tested if early pregnancy LOC was related to LE8 scores, controlling for relevant covariates, including randomization status and LOC propensity scores. Results: Early pregnancy LOC was not statistically significantly associated with standard LE8 scores in early pregnancy (b = -0.98, p = .47) or late pregnancy after adjusting for multiple comparisons (b = 2.63, corrected p = .37), nor with pregnancy-adapted LE8 scores in early (b = -1.06, p = .44) or late (b = 2.24, p = .06) pregnancy. Conclusions: The present study did not observe cross-sectional nor longitudinal associations between prenatal LOC and CVH across pregnancy when using the standard or pregnancy-adapted CVH frameworks. Nevertheless, one third of the current sample self-reported prenatal LOC, warranting future research to understand whether and how LOC contributes to cardiovascular risk among pregnant individuals.
This article provides a brief overview of family-based treatment for intergenerational diseases. There is no organized protocol within current treatment approaches to address intergenerational diseases within a family. The optimal approach depends on the trajectory of the disease. For problems or diseases that may be present in both parent and offspring during childhood (e.g., obesity and substance use), treatment should target both generations simultaneously. When a disease emerges more slowly and is present only in the parent, as may occur with cancer, the optimal approach may combine treating the parent with prevention in the child. For diseases that develop in later adulthood, such as cognitive impairment, the goal may be to prevent or delay disease in both the parent and child by addressing modifiable health behaviors and risks. The type of treatment may vary by disease, but lifestyle and behavior change are central to preventing or treating many chronic intergenerational diseases. If the problem is due to unhealthy behavior, or the disease can be prevented by changing behavior, treatment should focus on education and behavior change. It is important to recognize that although education is an important first step for health behavior change, education is not always sufficient to improve health and evidence-based behavioral interventions may be needed to modify behavior and improve health. Although lifestyle should be considered as a first step to prevent many chronic diseases, some intergenerational diseases may require pharmacological or surgical interventions. Extensive research on family-based treatment for intergenerational obesity has shown both short- and long-term treatment effects for children and their parents, as well as spillover effects to untreated siblings. Given the rising prevalence of intergenerational chronic disease in the United States, care must shift from an individual-level model of care to coordinated family-based treatment for intergenerational disease within families. Psychologists can help lead this shift through their expertise in behavior change, family systems, intervention development, implementation, and policy. Without this change, the long-term impact on intergenerational disease will remain limited. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Background: Obesity and diabetes are partly driven by obesogenic environments, which promote poor diet. Among individuals, health-favoring implicit associations (i.e., automatically activated beliefs) toward food are associated with healthier eating behaviors. Aggregated implicit associations may reflect features within local environments. However, it remains unclear whether such associations reflect systemically obesogenic environments. Objective: We examined county aggregates of American adults' implicit and explicit associations toward healthy (vs. unhealthy) food and their role in the relationship between food and socioeconomic environments and health outcomes across the United States. Method: We aggregated individual implicit associations toward palatability (n = 10,838; 76% female) and acceptability (n = 11,944; 82% female) of healthy (vs. unhealthy) food from Project Implicit Health within counties in the United States (palatable food: 1,316 counties; acceptable food: 1,339 counties). Additionally, we captured county-level environmental factors (fast-food restaurant density, median household income) and health outcomes (obesity, diabetes). Results: Stronger health-disfavoring implicit palatability associations were linked with lower median income (beta = .05, 95% confidence interval [.01, .10]), higher fast-food restaurant density (beta = -.09, [-.16, -.02]), higher obesity prevalence (beta = -.07, [-.13, -.02]), and higher diabetes prevalence (beta = -.05, [-.10, -.01]). These implicit associations mediated the relationship between environmental factors (median income and fast-food restaurant density) and health outcomes (obesity and diabetes prevalence). No relationships were observed with acceptability beliefs. Conclusions: Implicit food-related hedonic associations may be one pathway for how socioeconomic and food environments are linked with health. This approach could inform interventions to reduce geographic health disparities.
