This project is part of the Center for Integrative Approaches to Health Disparities (CIAHD), which was supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (2P60-MD002249-06). It supported a diverse set of research activities aimed at understanding how mental and physical health relate to social inequalities.

These research activities include theoretical contributions related to developing the Environmental Affordances Model of Health Disparities, which focuses on the intersection of stress and self-regulatory coping behaviors, and how those behaviors may have differential influences on (short-term) mental versus (long-term) physical health.  The Environmental Affordances Model interrogates how stress shapes mental health and health behaviors in the context of social disadvantage, and considers whether there is a “zero-sum” contest between promoting mental versus physical health in such contexts.

 

Select publications related to this project

Stress, self-regulation, and context: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Survey. SSM Population Health 2017.

Coming unmoored: Disproportionate increases in obesity prevalence among young, disadvantaged white women. Obesity 2015.

“White box” epidemiology and the social neuroscience of health behaviors: The Environmental Affordances Model. Soc Mental Health 2013.

Job strain, workplace discrimination, and hypertension among older workers: The Health and Retirement Study. Race Soc Prob 2011.

Depression and type 2 diabetes mellitus: A call to explore the common cause hypothesis. Arch Intern Med 2011.

Reconsidering the role of social disadvantage in physical and mental health: Stressful life events, health behaviors, race and depression. Am J Epidemiol 2010.