Moving in Childhood Contributes to Depression

In recent decades, mental health providers began screening for “adverse childhood experiences” — generally defined as abuse, neglect, violence, family dissolution and poverty — as risk factors for later disorders.

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Shigehiro Oishi, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago and the author of a 2010 study on the long-term effects of frequent moves in childhood, said that the negative effect of moves within the United States might be greater than within Denmark, since the differences in curriculum and quality of instruction would most likely be greater.

He called the paper “a landmark study” and “very, very methodologically strong.” He said the authors could have looked more closely at the causal mechanisms, or at moderating factors that might explain why some children, but not others, were negatively affected by frequent moves.

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