Project description
In addition to interrupting nearly every measure of safety and security (e.g., physical safety, access to food, health care, electricity, and employment), war also significantly impacts human relationships. Our work will make a significant contribution to understanding how Ukrainian youth and young adults are navigating the challenges of war not only regarding their coping strategies and individual adjustment, but also in how they are developing meaningful relationships with peers, partners, and parents, and the ways in which they are seeking and receiving support. We will follow a sample of youth and their parents from our 2023-2024 project in Ukraine to examine changes over time in associations among trauma, physiological stress, psychological well-being, and interpersonal relationships.
Project goals
- Collect follow-up data from a subsample of Risk and Resilience in Ukraine participants across 5 regions in Ukraine, including self-report, parent-report, and biological (e.g., hair samples) data.
- Expand our data collection to 2 new regions in Ukraine experiencing unique war trauma.
- Link self-report measures with administrative data documenting air alarms and explosions to understand which stressors are the most salient predictors of relationship difficulties, and which coping mechanisms and interpersonal relationships might have a protective effect against traumatic experiences.