# Illuminating the Developmental Etiology of Youth Resilience

> **NIH NIH F31** · MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $29,882

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Youth resilience is best conceptualized as multidimensional1–3 and dynamic,4–6 such that individuals may
demonstrate changes in academic, social, or psychiatric resilience over time. Despite this broad consensus,
the majority of empirical work on resilience has been cross-sectional and tends to focus on a single domain of
resilience (e.g., psychiatric resilience). This has notably limited the field’s understanding of the development of
resilience over time, including the trajectories that best characterize resilience, the specific biological
mechanisms underlying those trajectories, and whether domains of resilience follow similar or disparate
developmental courses. The current F31 proposal will address these gaps in the literature by examining the
developmental etiology of youth resilience to neighborhood adversity by using a large multi-informant and
multi-wave dataset of twins exposed to substantial levels of neighborhood disadvantage (e.g., poverty,
community violence). Specific Aim 1 will employ growth mixture models to group individuals based on their
domain-specific patterns of resilience (i.e., academic, social, psychiatric) across three time points: middle
childhood, early adolescence, and late adolescence; the first study of its kind. Specific Aim 2 will identify
longitudinally-predictive biomarkers of resilience trajectories through the first methylome wide association study
(MWAS) of resilience development. To eliminate genetic confounds prominent in human epigenetic studies, I
will also include discordant monozygotic twin difference analyses. By illuminating the developmental etiology of
resilience, these findings should inform policy and intervention efforts for youth in disadvantaged neighborhood
contexts.
To facilitate the completion of these aims, the proposed NRSA fellowship will provide training in 1) longitudinal
statistical methods, 2) advanced epigenetic analytics, 3) the development of an integrated, conceptual theory
of the development of resilience (essential for understanding the results for scientific aims 1 and 2 given the
dearth of relevant literature), 4) the preparation of grants and manuscripts, and 5) the ethical conduct of
research. These five areas of training will significantly further my development as an independent
interdisciplinary researcher and ultimately facilitate my goal of creating a program of research focused on the
study of youth resilience within a developmentally, genetically, and environmentally informed context.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10757325
- **Project number:** 5F31HD111273-02
- **Recipient organization:** MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Alexandra Yvette Vazquez
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $29,882
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-01-02 → 2024-08-04

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10757325

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10757325, Illuminating the Developmental Etiology of Youth Resilience (5F31HD111273-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10757325. Licensed CC0.

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