This project examines the association of PTSD and depression with ovarian cancer risk, identifying a key etiologic period for risk and comprehensively evaluating inflammation and systemic immunity as potential mechanisms underlying or potentiating these associations. This research seeks to achieve the following aims: (1) assess the timing of PTSD and depression onset and remission; (2) assess a possible synergistic and/or mediating role of high inflammation in the relationship between PTSD or depression and OvCa development; (3) evaluate the relationship of PTSD and depression with circulating markers of humoral immunity.

The goal of this network is to develop research resources and foster a cohesive community of interdisciplinary scholars focused on discovering which aspects of Emotional Well-Being (EWB) are most tightly linked to physical health, which interventions most effectively increase EWB, and the biobehavioral processes that explain how EWB impacts health.

The goal of this center is to establish a sustainable transdisciplinary program devoted to research, education, and dissemination to facilitate the integration of occupational safety and health, and health promotions. The center seeks to promote worker safety, health, and well-being by expanding the scientific evidence base and informing better policy-making and practice to foster supportive work conditions.

Through training and support the JPB Environmental Health Fellowship Program promotes a new generation of compassionate multidisciplinary junior faculty and federal agency scientists from institutions across the U.S. who are dedicated to finding solutions to complex environmental health problems by examining the influence of both the environmental and social factors that determine health disparities. This program will support junior faculty to conduct research on social and environmental determinants of health and provide professional development and training for the fellows.

Various forms of chronic distress have been linked with premature aging and the development of cardiometabolic diseases, which are leading causes of death in older adults. However, although metabolic changes affecting vascular health are proposed as a key pathway driving the relationship between chronic distress and major diseases of aging, there is limited understanding of the molecules and mechanisms underlying these metabolic changes. In this renewal, we aim to expand our findings by investigating unknown metabolites, assessing additional key populations, and examining whether chronic distress is causally linked to our metabolomic distress score and its components.

Our overall objective is to initiate a unique project to evaluate the PTSD-gut microbiome relationship and develop synbiotics (a combination of prebiotics and probiotics) to prevent or ameliorate PTSD, leveraging a population-based cohort and an etiologically relevant mouse model. This work is supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, through the Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health Research Program (Focused Program Award), endorsed by the Department of Defense.

This project will extensively examine associations of optimism with less cognitive decline over time, and may identify new targets for interventions to improve cognitive health and eventually reduce risk of ADRD. This research seeks to (1) examine long-term relations of optimism with cognitive health; (2) examine relation of optimism to daily cognitive function; (3) evaluate physical activity as one pathway by which optimism influences healthier cognition.