Kubzansky Research Group
Dr. Laura Kubzansky is professor of social and behavioral sciences and director of the Society and Health Laboratory at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is a sitting faculty member at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, and served as a founding director of both the JPB Environmental Health Fellowship Program and the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at Harvard Chan School.
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Health and Well-being: Positive Psychosocial Factors
A major focus of my work is understanding what psychological and social factors promote resilience and reduce disease risk. Research on positive factors has been extremely limited, as disorders have historically captured more attention. I have argued that the absence of negative factors is not the same as the presence of positive factors and tested this hypothesis in numerous ways. I have utilized a broad conceptualization of healthy psychological and social functioning to capture factors that allow individuals to respond effectively to a range of social and environmental challenges and generally focused on relations with coronary heart disease, mortality, and healthy aging. This work identifies psychological and social factors that promote resilience, reduce disease risk, and enhance longevity beyond signaling the absence of distress.
Sample Publications:
- Boehm JK, Kubzansky LD. The heart’s content: The association between positive psychological well-being and cardiovascular health. Psychological Bulletin, 2012; 138(4):655-691. PMCID N/A.
- Trudel-Fitzgerald C, Zevon E, Kawachi I, Tucker-Seeley RD, Grodstein F, Kubzansky LD. The prospective association of social integration with lifespan and exceptional longevity in women. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 2020; 5(10):2132-2141. PMCID: PMC7664314.