Kathleen Roche, MSW, PhD

Trained in fields of public health and social work, Professor Roche's research program seeks to investigate intersecting influences of community, culture, and parenting in relationship to the healthy development of adolescents, particularly those in Latin American-origin families. Using a development-in-context approach to research, her work examines parenting, parent-adolescent relationships, and adolescent adjustment within the context of adversities including racial-ethnic discrimination, acculturation to the U.S., economic disadvantage, and restrictive immigrant environments. Dr. Roche's research is informed by multiple disciplines: developmental psychology, urban sociology, family social sciences, and social epidemiology. She engages in longitudinal studies to investigate adolescent health and well-being, parenting, acculturation-related factors, immigrant Latino/a families, and neighborhood-by-parenting interaction effects. She is particularly interested in integrating developmental and ecological theories with the social epidemiology of adolescent health in order to better understand social influences on adolescent behaviors, success in school, and mental health.