Sleep is essential for the health of midlife women, yet the barriers (factors that impede) and facilitators (factors that support) to achieving adequate sleep, particularly among working-class women in Mexico City and broader Latin American contexts, remains insufficiently understood. This study aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the factors influencing sleep among working-class midlife women in Mexico City. A mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative data (epidemiologic measures) and qualitative data (ethnographic interviews), was employed among women enrolled in a Mexico City cohort. We used epidemiologic data to describe sleep and its correlates in a sample of 120 women, incorporating both self-reported (questionnaires and sleep diaries) and behavioral (actigraphy-based) measures of sleep. A subset of 30 women participated in in-depth ethnographic interviews to explore determinants of sleep, including barriers, facilitators and coping strategies to compensate for sleep loss. Our findings reveal that many women experienced poor sleep, with 43% reporting insomnia-related difficulties and 53% experiencing short sleep duration. Barriers included family-related stress, particularly caregiving responsibilities, economic instability, and mental health challenges. In response to sleep loss, women often resorted to coping mechanisms, such as caffeine consumption and napping, and the use of natural remedies. This study highlights the critical role social factors, including family dynamics and caregiving roles, in shaping sleep health outcomes. Sleep, as an inherently social behavior, is strongly influenced by these contextual factors. These findings underscore the importance of considering psychosocial and cultural contexts in interventions aimed at promoting healthy sleep in midlife women.

The Mountain West Clinical and Translational Infrastructure Network Community Engagement and Outreach (CEO) Core has fostered academic-community engagement since 2018. States historically receiving lower levels of NIH funding are characterized by significantly higher proportions of rural and remote populations, as well as uniquely elevated percentages of Native American/Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander populations compared to most other states. This case study highlights the Core’s efforts in advancing community-engaged research. Key initiatives included forming a CEO Core Steering Committee to recruit interdisciplinary investigators, establishing regional community advisory boards to identify research priorities, and creating a Resource Library and Training Portal for stakeholders. The Core also collaborated with other Cores to provide training, mentorship, and funding for community-engaged research. Despite these achievements, geographical and cultural diversity presented engagement challenges. Regular meetings between investigators and stakeholders ensured bidirectional communication and aligned goals. The Core transformed transactional engagement into meaningful collaboration, emphasizing the need for interdisciplinary teams who understand community needs. Future goals include training academic teams, clinical providers, and community members, empowering early-stage investigators to share findings with partners, leveraging health records for research, and developing strategies to protect investigators’ time.

To test the transmission of mental health difficulties from mother to child, we examined mediation through emotion reminiscing conversations and child language. Maternal depression symptoms were measured at 9 months post-partum, and child mental health outcomes were measured at age 8 years. Emotion reminiscing conversations between 1,234 mother-child pairs (624 boys, 610 girls) were recorded as part of a large, diverse, longitudinal cohort Growing Up in New Zealand. The 1,234 reminiscing conversations were transcribed and coded for maternal elaboration and emotion resolution quality (mother and child). The coded reminiscing variables did not mediate the pathway from maternal depression to child mental health outcomes; however, each maternal reminiscing variable together with child language skill serially mediated the relationship from maternal depression symptoms to child-reported anxiety and depression symptoms, and parent-reported child externalizing symptoms. Language as a skill and it’s use as a tool for making shared meaning from past events are highlighted as possible mechanisms for the intergenerational transmission of mental health difficulties. These findings point to potential opportunities for early interventions, including prevention of and support for postnatal depression, family intervention in reminiscing training, and supporting child language development.

Maternal depressive symptoms (MDS) in the postnatal period may impact children’s later development through poorer quality parent-child interactions. The current study tested a specific pathway from MDS (child age 9 months) to child receptive vocabulary (4 ½ years) through both self-reported and observed parent-child verbal interactions (at both 2 and 4 ½ years). Participants (n = 4,432) were part of a large, diverse, contemporary pre-birth national cohort study: Growing Up in New Zealand. Results indicated a direct association between greater MDS at 9 months and poorer receptive vocabulary at age 4 ½ years. There was support for an indirect pathway through self-reported parent-child verbal interactions at 2 years and through observed parent-child verbal interactions at 4 ½ years. A moderated mediation effect was also found: the indirect effect of MDS on child vocabulary through observed verbal interaction was supported for families living in areas of greater socioeconomic deprivation. Overall, findings support the potential role of parent-child verbal interactions as a mechanism for the influence of MDS on later child language development. This pathway may be particularly important for families experiencing socioeconomic adversity, suggesting that effective and appropriate supportive parenting interventions be preferentially targeted to reduce inequities in child language outcomes.