Head-worn cameras bring fathers into focus for researchers studying intergenerational mental health

Previous observational research on parental postnatal depression has mainly focused on the relationship between mothers and children. Fathers are often excluded from these studies, even though fathers’ relationships with their children can also impact child development.

Dr Iryna Culpin’s research on the intergenerational transmission of mental health is supported by the Better Health & Care Hub, and explores two key questions: how are mental health risks passed from parents to their children, and what role do everyday family interactions play in this process?

To find out, Dr Culpin and her team gave families head-worn cameras to record how they interact at home.

How do family interactions shape the transmission of mental health risk?

The process of passing on mental health risks from parents to children is still a relatively new area of study. We know that children are shaped by their relationships with both parents and how the whole family interacts together. This includes how parents communicate, support each other and coparent.

However, relatively little is known about how parental depression affects family dynamics, especially when fathers are included in the research.

The project aims to uncover specific family behaviours and interaction patterns that increase mental health risks, and how this knowledge can be turned into targeted interventions that support the whole family.

As part of the initial study, the team collected extensive video-based observational data of father-child interactions using a novel method in which fathers and children wore head-mounted cameras. Dr Culpin was awarded funding from a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship in Humanities and Social Sciences, which enabled her to collect this observational data with fathers and children who took part in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC-Generation 2).

Observing family interactions with head-worn cameras

Professor Rebecca Pearson – Dr Culpin’s colleague and mentor, now at Manchester Metropolitan University – pioneered the use of head‑worn cameras to observe mother-child interactions. This project extends this work into triadic family interactions – mother, father and child together.

“To move beyond studying isolated parent-child interactions, we had to co-produce acceptable and accessible methods that would allow us to assess how whole families interact,” explains Dr Culpin.

Working closely with the Fatherhood Institute and South London and Maudsley’s Centre for Parent and Child Community Perinatal Services, the team engaged with families from different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, developed father-inclusive recruitment strategies and connected with health and community support practitioners.

The team ran large co-production workshop with around 15 families, who tried out the head-worn cameras and provided feedback on what felt comfortable, what felt intrusive and what simply wouldn’t work.

“We asked them whether the procedures felt acceptable, whether they would work in their own homes, and whether there were any cultural influences that might affect how they engaged with the cameras,” she says. “Their feedback on usability, acceptability and accessibility was crucial.”

But the families were only one part of the process. The team also brought together health and community practitioners, early‑years workers, clinicians and support services to explore the practical realities of using family‑based video‑feedback approaches. They worked together to consider how these approaches could be applied in real‑world and clinical settings to support families affected by mental health difficulties.

“We wanted to talk to them about how best to use family-based video-feedback interventions, potentially supported by the head cameras, in community and healthcare settings,” Dr Culpin says. Their insights will shape how future interventions can be delivered to families who need them.

The project team also built an interdisciplinary academic team to help analyse complex observational data produced by the cameras. The research brought together academics from epidemiology, developmental and clinical psychology, sociology and experts in machine learning and AI.

“The goal was to develop machine learning protocols to help with coding and analysing the collected data. These protocols help us to identify behavioural patterns observed during family interactions that may be linked to different developmental and behavioural outcomes in children. We can also examine if these interactional patterns differ in families experiencing mental health difficulties,” Dr Culpin adds.

What the project has achieved so far

Although this phase of the project was intended as groundwork, the team have already achieved several important milestones. The researchers co-produced accessible and acceptable methods for collecting data on family interactions, which are inclusive of fathers and reflective of potential cultural variations (such as task preferences and timing of interactions). They also worked in partnership with clinical and support services to co-develop mechanisms for integrating family-based interventions into practice. Given how complex video-based behavioural data can be to analyse, the team have taken important steps to develop innovative machine-learning protocols that can handle the rich, multi-view footage captured. This work lays the foundation for automated coding and analysis of family dynamics.

An interdisciplinary research team is now in place, spanning developmental psychology, epidemiology, sociology and AI. Just as importantly, the project forged strong partnerships with non-academic organisations, whose insights shaped both the research methods and the early thinking around how family-based interventions could work in real clinical settings.

Why it matters

This research is timely, as the need for family-centred mental health support has never been clearer. Most interventions still focus on mothers and mother-child relationships, but this research shifts the lens to the whole family, including fathers. By doing so, the project opens the door to interventions that are more inclusive and reflective of real family life.

Dr Culpin’s team is currently applying for funding to enable them to collect data on family-based interactions and conduct AI-based analyses of their impact on child development. The ultimate goal is to reduce the transmission of mental health risks across generations and improve health and wellbeing of whole families.