Recognizing Impact: Erin Hetherington

As a PhD student in the Community Health Science Graduate Program, Erin Hetherington is researching how women’s social support networks impact mothers’ mental health and their children’s development. She uses information from an ongoing study in Calgary called “All Our Families”, led by her supervisor, Dr. Suzanne Tough. This study recruited over 3000 women in pregnancy and has been following them over time.

Understanding the social influences of health is important so that we know what types of programs and policies can help improve outcomes for moms and kids. Her research recently showed that having stronger support networks helps protect moms against mental health problems, like postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety. Interestingly, while support is beneficial for everyone, it has the largest potential impact among women who have had more previous mental health challenges, like a previous depression or adverse experiences in early life. So while providing support to all pregnant women is important, if policymakers want to have the greatest impact, they have evidence to help them focus programs toward women who have had mental health challenges. Group prenatal care, prenatal education, and peer support programs can all improve support for pregnant women. Other such strategies could be very valuable in the post-partum period to help moms cope with the transition. Additional support to as few as 7 pregnant women who have a history of mental health issues, and currently don’t have a strong support network, could potentially prevent 1 case of postpartum anxiety and 1 case of postpartum depression.

“Health is so much more than the absence of disease. We need to understand all the factors that can have an impact on our health, and the health of children. If we understand what factors can prevent poor outcomes, then we can focus on strategies that address these factors before the problems arise and improve health and wellbeing for everyone” says Erin.

When not working on her research Erin likes spending time with her family and enjoying the outdoors.