KDHRC Shines during GPHA Conference

Earlier this month, Morgan Fleming, an Account Associate at KDH Research & Communication, presented new research at the Georgia Public Health Association (GPHA) Conference in Jekyll Island, GA. During her 30-minute roundtable discussion, Morgan shared our analysis of how parents understand their teenagers reports of stress during the pandemic. More than 30 attendees of the roundtable discussion first listened to a short overview of the analyses before diving into a discussion about their experience both within their public health field and with their own children.

Previous studies have reported that teenage girls experienced worse levels of pandemic-related mental health outcomes compared to teenage boys. We used the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study data from Wave 5.5 (July 2020- December 2020) to determine whether there was a gender difference in how parents in this dataset underestimated their child’s pandemic stress. We found that not only do teenage girls report significantly more stress than teenage boys, but also parents were more likely to significantly underestimate their daughters’ stress than their sons. These findings have implications for helping teenagers get the help they may need to succeed.

These results are under review for publication in a leading public health journal. Check out our brief on this topic here: https://www.kdhrc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Number-29-May-2024_pandemicstress_FINAL.pdf