Introduction: Family forms a complex system, and mental health is one important process that emerges from it, interacting with immediate family setting and broader socio-economic contexts. However, research often investigates only part of this system, missing key aspects of how family mental health dynamics operate. The present study uses two types of analysis to examine (1) mental and behavioural outcomes of socio-demographic clusters of UK families and (2) how mental health symptoms transmit among family members.

Methods: Data from Understanding Society waves 1–13 were analysed. First, latent class analyses identified clusters of families based on socio-economic and demographic indicators. Mixed-effects models examined the relationship between class membership and parents’ and children’s mental health, as well as whether members were affected during COVID and the cost-of-living crisis. Finally, network models were applied to model mental health processes between family members. Statistics quantified the strength and importance of each family member’s mental health dimensions within family networks.

Results: Five latent family classes were identified, with lower-income, mostly ethnic minority households experiencing the most severe parental mental health, while single-parent low-income households showed the worst child mental health outcomes. There was some evidence that mothers and children in certain classes fared worse during the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis. Network analyses revealed that maternal emotional symptoms played a central role in family mental health transmission and that, specifically, mother’s feeling of being overwhelmed predicted child worry, which in turn reinforced maternal emotional stress.

Conclusions: By integrating macro-societal with analyses of individual family processes, this study highlights both the processes involved in giving rise to poor mental health in the family and which families should be targeted. In particular, supporting maternal emotional well-being is crucial to breaking intergenerational cycles of mental health distress.

C0-authors

Dr Matthias Pierce; Professor Kathryn Abel; Dr Ming Wai Wan, University of Manchester

Professor Samantha Cartwright, University of Sussex

Archie Rayner, Imperial College London