Identifying early causal factors leading to the development of poor mental health and behavioral outcomes is essential to design efficient preventive interventions. The substantial associations observed between parental risk factors (e.g., maternal stress in pregnancy, parental education, parental psychopathology, parent-child relationship) and child outcomes point toward the importance of parents in shaping child outcomes. However, such associations may also reflect confounding, including genetic transmission-that is, the child inherits genetic risk common to the parental risk factor and the child outcome. This can generate associations in the absence of a causal effect. As randomized trials and experiments are often not feasible or ethical, observational studies can help to infer causality under specific assumptions. This review aims to provide a comprehensive summary of current causal inference methods using observational data in intergenerational settings. We present the rich causal inference toolbox currently available to researchers, including genetically informed and analytical methods, and discuss their application to child mental health and related outcomes. We outline promising research areas and discuss how existing approaches can be combined or extended to probe the causal nature of intergenerational effects. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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使用观察数据进行代际研究的因果推理方法。

确定导致心理健康和行为结果不佳发展的早期原因对于设计有效的预防干预措施至关重要。在父母风险因素（例如，孕期母亲压力、父母教育、父母精神病理学、亲子关系）和儿童结果之间观察到的实质性关联表明父母在塑造儿童结果方面的重要性。然而，这种关联也可能反映出混杂因素，包括遗传传递——也就是说，孩子继承了父母风险因素和孩子结果共有的遗传风险。这可以在没有因果关系的情况下产生关联。由于随机试验和实验通常不可行或不合乎道德，因此观察性研究可以帮助推断特定假设下的因果关系。本综述旨在全面总结当前在代际环境中使用观察数据的因果推理方法。我们展示了目前可供研究人员使用的丰富的因果推理工具箱，包括遗传信息和分析方法，并讨论了它们在儿童心理健康和相关结果中的应用。我们概述了有前途的研究领域，并讨论了如何结合或扩展现有方法来探究代际效应的因果关系。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2023 APA，保留所有权利）。并讨论它们在儿童心理健康和相关结果中的应用。我们概述了有前途的研究领域，并讨论了如何结合或扩展现有方法来探究代际效应的因果关系。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2023 APA，保留所有权利）。并讨论它们在儿童心理健康和相关结果中的应用。我们概述了有前途的研究领域，并讨论了如何结合或扩展现有方法来探究代际效应的因果关系。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2023 APA，保留所有权利）。