This issue of JAMA Psychiatry presents the findings from an epidemiological study from Santavirta et al on the risk of psychiatric hospitalization among the offspring of adults who were evacuated as child refugees to Sweden during World War II under the Finnish Evacuation Policy. The study provides a glimpse into the potential intergenerational associations of being a child refugee during World War II with psychiatric hospitalization, with particular attention to sex.

IMPORTANCE

Although there is evidence that adverse childhood experiences are associated with worse mental health in adulthood, scarce evidence is available regarding an emerging concern that the next generation might also be affected.

OBJECTIVE

To compare the risk of psychiatric hospitalization in cousins whose parents were vs were not exposed to the Finnish evacuation policy that involved a mean 2-year stay with a Swedish foster family.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

Anger and aggression are common mental health problems after military deployment. Anger and aggression have been associated with abnormalities in subcortical and cortical levels of the brain and their connectivity.

Here, we tested brain activation during the processing of emotional stimuli in military veterans with and without anger and aggression problems.

Thirty military veterans with anger and aggression problems and 29 veterans without a psychiatric diagnosis (all males) participated in this study.

Emerging evidence suggests that the loss of loved ones under traumatic circumstances is highly prevalent among refugees and asylum seekers.

We evaluated the effects of traumatic and multiple losses of family members and friends on psychopathology, disability, and quality of life in Iraqi asylum seekers in the Netherlands, and investigated mediation of these effects through psychopathology.

Respondents (N = 294) completed structured Arabic interviews.

Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.