Katie Ehrlich, an assistant professor of psychology in UGA’s Franklin College of Art and Sciences, was quoted in a Los Angeles Times article about a new study that looks at the long-term effects on a family after a wartime evacuation.
More than 70 years ago, more than 70,000 Finnish children were separated from their parents and taken to institutions and foster families in Sweden and Denmark. As Finland had become a battleground for Soviet and German forces, the children were sent away to shield them from harm. A study by an international group of child development experts have found that its effect was not wholly protective. Now ranging in age from
71 to 82, the female evacuees were hospitalized or a mood disorder at higher rates than their peers who had stayed at home with their families, and this shadow of depression has fallen on their daughters.
“When we study children’s experience of early adversity, we often refer to it as the long arm of childhood,” said Ehrlich, who was not involved in the study. “These experiences affect mental and physical health across the lifespan and across the course of development.”
