Faculty Facilitator: Stephanie Cook, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics
The Attachment and Health Disparities Lab’s (ADHL) research is guided by two overarching questions: 1) what are the mechanisms that link multilevel (e.g., structural, community, interpersonal, and individual) minority stressors to health within and between groups of racial/ethnic, sexual, and gender minorities and those at the intersection, and 2) does adult attachment exacerbate or mitigate the potentially negative effects of minority stress on health? I have addressed these research questions through primary and secondary data analysis. To this end, researchers in the ADHL focus on understanding how structural- and individual-level minority stressors (i.e., violence, discrimination, and hate, etc.) contribute to mental health, physical health, and health behaviors across the lifespan and in the virtual and physical worlds. The primary target group is young adults transitioning to adulthood who are at the intersection of racial/ethnic and sexual orientation status.
In addition, much of the team’s current work examines the links between minority stress (i.e., daily experiences of discrimination) and biological markers of stress and disease (e.g., cortisol and c-reactive protein). In the ADHL there is also a substantive methodological and statistical focus on the development and application of longitudinal study designs (i.e., intensive longitudinal designs) for determining the ways in which dynamic changes in features of minority stress (e.g., daily and momentary discrimination events) are associated with changes in risk behaviors and physical health (e.g., sexual risk and substance use, pre-clinical cardiovascular disease, and biological stress) among racial/ethnic and/or sexual minority young adults. To learn more about how to get involved or learn more about our current research projects please visit our website.