Everyday Discrimination and Cardiovascular Disease in African-American Women

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Candidate is a Psychologist and a new Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Yale University School of Medicine. Her long-term career objective is to establish an independent program of research in the area of psychosocial epidemiology, with an emphasis on cardiovascular disease (CVD) in African-American women. The integrated research and training program described in this application extends her prior work in Psychology and African-American women's health, and incorporates new training in: 1) Epidemiology and Biostatistics; 2) Cardiovascular Physiology; 3) Study design and implementation; and 4) State-of-the-art Psychological Assessment techniques. The research proposed in this Mentored Scientist Career Development Award utilizes a multi-method approach to determine whether self-reported experiences of "everyday" discrimination are significantly associated with indices of CVD in two separate cohorts of African-American women. The research plan describes three separate but interrelated projects designed to examine the proposed everyday discrimination and CVD association. Methodologies employed include: Secondary data analysis, primary data collection, and Ecological Momentary Assessment. The proposed career development plan will develop and enhance the Candidate's knowledge base, skills, and expertise, and findings from the proposed studies will lay the foundation for a program of research examining the psychosocial predictors of poor CVD outcomes in African-American women. Important advancements in the proposed research are the rigorous application of psychosocial constructs to the study of patterns of disease, and the specific evaluation of the impact of a common psychsocial stressor (i.e., "everyday" discrimination) that is understudied in terms of its public health impact. (End of Abstract)