Context, Comorbidity, and Development of Suicidal Behavior among Rural Adolescents (Martha Rueter) This study examines how comorbid disorder, contextual factors, and developmental processes lead to suicidal behavior among rural youth. It fills the gap in knowledge about rural adolescents.

Couple Experiences of Sleeping Together Over the Life Cycle (Paul Rosenblatt)  This is an intensive, qualitative interview study of couple experiences of sleeping together, from first learning how to share a bed through various challenges that emerge over the life cycle (for example, changes in physical health, changes in body size, menopause, onset of snoring).  A book in preparation outlines the many complexities and rewards of couple bed sharing and what couple bed sharing reveals about human needs, the complexities of couple life, culture, and life in modern America.

Driving and Family Life  (Paul Rosenblatt) Studies are planned to explore how family life intrudes into driving and how driving is used as a place to deal with family life.  One publication from this project documents that grief may emerge powerfully while someone is driving and that some bereaved people save their grieving for times while they are alone and driving.

End of Life Care in African American Families (William Turner) In this study we attempted to understand the African American caregiving experience in its multiple contexts. This research is based on in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups with African American family caregivers from various regions of the United States during a stressful time in their family development--caregiving at the end-of-life--and the grieving during the aftermath. The findings highlight the importance of hearing from African American families to gain an understanding of what services, including family therapy and other psychotherapy, they will need during this process. This study examines the ways in which African American family networks are mobilized to meet the caregiving demands when a family member in need of care experiences a sudden change in health status.

Families and Democracy Project  (William Doherty) This is a community-organizing effort with families around a variety of issues of concern to families, involving active partnership between family professionals and communities of families.

Grief in Families  (Paul Rosenblatt) This is an ongoing series of projects.  One recently completed project involved intensive interviews of couples who experienced the death of a child.  That research led to two books and a number of research articles.  A current project (with doctoral student Beverly Wallace) involves intensive interviews of African-Americans about their experience of a death in the family.  This has led to a book on African-American grief that should be published in 2005.  A second current project (with recent Family Social Science Ph.D., Sungeun Yang) involves co-translation of a well-known Korean novel that focuses on a family dealing with the dying and death of one of the members of the family.  Yang and I are also working on papers, based on the novel, on Korean families dealing with terminal illness of one of the partners.  A project that is in the planning stage (with doctoral student Busisiwe Nkosi) deals with widowhood in Zulu culture in the country of South Africa.  And another project in the planning stage deals with the impact of the death of a parent on the couple relationship of adult offspring of the parent.

International Adoption Project (Hal Grotevant) This study involves a survey of all Minnesota families who adopted children internationally between 1990 - 1998. This study is in collaboration with Drs. Megan Gunnar, Dana Johnson, Wendy Hellerstedt, and Richard Lee, all of the University of Minnesota. Approximately 2500 surveys have been received and are being analyzed.

Latinos/as’ Access to and Utilization of Mental Health Services in Rural Minnesota (Liz Wieling) This study investigates an underdeveloped area of research focusing on mental health services with Latino/a populations. The data will enhance our understanding of factors that lead to decreasing barriers and improving access to and utilization of mental health services to Latinos/as. Focus group and individual ethnographic interviews will take place with Latino/a community members and mental health professionals from a variety of disciplines in the Twin Cities area.

The Minnesota Family Formation Project (William Doherty), The project aims to encourage stable family formation among new unmarried parents; promote healthy and successful marriages among unmarried couples who desire it; encourage responsible fathering; promote the economic and psychosocial well-being of children; promote paternity establishment; and encourage community support for marriage and family formation among unmarried parents.

Minnesota / Texas Adoption Research Project  (Hal Grotevant) This is a longitudinal, multi-site project aimed at understanding the experiences of adoptive kinship networks having different levels of openness in their relationships - some of the families have confidential adoptions, meaning that there is basically no contact between the adoptive family and the child's birth family; others have mediated adoptions, in which information is shared via a third party (usually a staff member at the adoption agency); yet others have fully disclosed open adoption, in which birth family and adoptive family members communicate directly with each other. Within each type of adoption, there is tremendous variation in the amount and frequency of contact and in who is involved in the contact. This study is in collaboration with Dr. Ruth McRoy, of the University of Texas at Austin, Susan Ayers-Lopez, University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Gretchen Wrobel, of Bethel College (St. Paul), and Dr. Deborah Lewis Fravel, of Indiana University.

National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health /Add Health (Hal Grotevant) This study examines the links among adolescents' interpersonal relationships, social contexts, and mental health outcomes. This study is in collaboration with Dr. Brent Miller of Utah State University and Dr. Xitao Fan of the University of Virginia.

National Healthy Marriage Resource Center (William Doherty) Bill will partner with the National Council on Family Relations to design and create the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center.  The Center will serve as a national clearinghouse for reliable, research-based and nonpartisan information about healthy marriage.  The center’s main functions are to collect and disseminate information on healthy marriage; create resources and tools to aid marriage educators, practitioners, community activists and other interested individuals and groups; collect, organize, synthesize, and disseminate research findings about how to build and sustain healthy marriages; collect, foster, and articulate best practices for practitioners, such as marriage counselors, social workers, clergy and mental health professionals; and communicate information about healthy marriage to practitioners, policy-makers, legislators and the general public.

Professional Practice Patterns of Marriage and Family Therapists  (William Doherty) This is a large data set containing information about the professional practice patterns of marriage and family therapists and their clients.

Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (Martha Rueter). The "Sibs Study" is an on-going, longitudinal study of 400 adoptive families and 200 nonadoptive (biological) families. Data from 3 or 4 family members includes information about family interactions, individual characteristics, mental disorder, behavior problems, and substance use problems. Also, independent observers assessed multiple aspects of videotaped family interactions. These data provide an excellent opportunity to address questions of genetic; shared and unshared environmental effects of families, behavior, and disorder (Matt McGue PI).