Intergenerational Impacts of Historical Trauma on Contemporary Depression Symptoms Among Indigenous Communities.

Introduction: Indigenous communities in the U.S. and Canada have endured generations of historical trauma. In the face of ongoing marginalization, Indigenous Peoples persist, resist, and thrive. Simultaneously, the consequences of historical trauma are vast and enduring. For instance, there is significant variation in how depression symptoms unfold over the life course. The aim of this study is to examine longitudinal, intergenerational associations between historical trauma and depression symptoms among Indigenous young adults.

Method: Analyses include data from target participants (i.e., children at baseline) and their primary female caregivers (e.g., parents) from Healing Pathways (HP), a community-based participatory study that began in 2001/2002 with families from 8 First Nations in the US and Canada. All eligible children (ages 10 to 12-years-old at baseline, enrolled tribal members, living on/near reserve land) and at least one of their caregivers were invited to participate, and were interviewed annually for eight years. Three additional years of interviews were conducted starting in 2017 with baseline enrolled children, now young adults. Caregivers and their now young adult children completed measures of depression symptoms, family boarding/residential school (BRS) history, and other family sociodemographic variables.

Results: Group-based trajectory modeling identified 4 depression symptom trajectory groups: low (28.7%), decreasing (26.6%), increasing (22.4%), and high (22.3%). Multinomial logistic regression analyses, with the low symptom group as the referent group, revealed that familial BRS history doubled the odds of being in the high symptom group (OR = 2.05, p<.05) compared to the low symptom group. Being female, experiencing discrimination, and caregiver (e.g., parental) history of depression increased the odds of being in the high symptom group, while experiencing warm and supportive parenting decreased the odds of being in the high symptom group.

Conclusion: The intergenerational effects of historical trauma remain ongoing and harmful to Indigenous populations. Current findings illuminate several factors that may be particularly salient among subsequent Indigenous generations, and provide implications for prevention efforts.