National Council on Family Relations Awards Public Health Experts with the Reuben Hill Award

The National Council on Family Relations has awarded Seth Schwartz, Ph.D., a professor in the Miller School of Medicine's Department of Public Health Sciences, the 2020 Reuben Hill Award. The award is presented to authors of the best research article from the prior years that have made substantial and significant contributions to family research and theory.

The study for which Dr. Schwartz was awarded the accolade is titled "Family functioning trajectories among Latino families: Links with cultural stress, emotional well-being, and behavioral health". Dr. Schwartz served as senior author of the study, which was published in Child Development. The award was also presented to Elma I. Lorenzo-Blanco, Ph.D., assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, who served as first author of the study, José Szapocznik, Ph.D., chair emeritus and professor in the Miller School's Department of Public Health Sciences, as well as to the co-authors of the study. 

"This award is for an article that my colleague Dr. Lorenzo-Blanco led, using data from my Miami-Los Angeles acculturation study. We examined the longitudinal trajectories of adolescent- and parent-reported family functioning among recently immigrated Hispanic families," said Dr. Schwartz. "Both parent and adolescent reports of family functioning predicted adolescent psychological well-being and protected against adolescent depressive symptoms and substance use."

“I am humbled to have the opportunity to be a member of this terrific research team committed to better understanding the Latinx immigration experience," said Dr. Szapocznik. "This work continues to teach us about the important role that Latinx parents play in their teen’s lives.”

The review committee scoured over 25 leading scholarly journals in the family field to nominate a select set of articles. These articles were then combined with nominated articles to produce the finalist.  From that set, committee members then rated each article according to established criteria. "Family functioning trajectories among Latino families: Links with cultural stress, emotional well-being, and behavioral health" garnered the most total points and the highest-ranking across the reviewers.