General, Leading Stories
Study: Young Puerto Ricans experience higher rates of depression on U.S. mainland than at home
By Eileen Weber
Puerto Ricans experience higher rates of depression and anxiety on the U.S. mainland than when at home. After nearly 20 years of research and about 2,000 people interviewed, the Boricua Youth Study discovered that fact. The study compared kids ages five to 13 as they transitioned to early adulthood from 15 to 29 under similar conditions of income and exposure to violence in both Puerto Rico and the South Bronx, a region with one of the highest Puerto Rican populations on the U.S. mainland. Research focused on four categories that influence mental health: environmental/social factors, cultural and minority stress, parent/peer [More]
Evidence doesn’t support claim linking mental illness, mass shooters
By Janine Weisman
The evidence suggests mass shootings perpetrated by individuals with mental illness account for less than one percent of gun-related homicides. But you wouldn’t know it from President Donald Trump’s comments after a pair of mass shootings during the first weekend in August killed more than 30 people in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Among Trump’s widely reported quotes: “Mental illness and hatred pull the trigger, not the gun.” “The president is poorly informed about the research on gun violence generally and mass gun violence in particular,” said Robert Kinscherff, Ph.D., JD, a professor in the doctoral program in clinical [More]
Study gives insight into how people experience emotion
By Phyllis Hanlon
Emotions run the gamut, from sadness and grief to happiness and euphoria and many others in between. But little is known about how and why those emotions change at different times and during different stages of life. A team of researchers at Harvard University recently conducted a study to explore these questions. Leah Somerville, Ph.D, associate professor psychology, and director, Affective Neuroscience and Development Lab, oversaw the study, which involved 143 subjects between the age of five and 25. Clinical psychologist graduate student Erik Nook, the “resident expert” on this work – according to Somerville – has long been interested [More]
Developmental trauma disorder is focus of research
By Catherine Robertson Souter
It would surprise no one that children who have been mistreated or have been subjected to another form of trauma would experience repercussions. It makes sense that trauma can result in symptoms that look like behavioral disorders, oppositional defiant disorders, anxiety, depression, or ADHD. Yet, for many children the symptoms are treated as not being related to their traumatic experiences. As part of an on-going research project, Julian D. Ford, Ph.D, A.B.P.P., professor of psychiatry and law at the University of Connecticut and director of the Center for Trauma Recovery and Juvenile Justice, and colleagues Joseph Spinazzola, Ph.D. and Bessel [More]
Researcher Nicole Overstreet, Ph.D., focuses on concerns of women, marginalized groups
By Catherine Robertson Souter
Until recently, medical and psychological research was done with a “one-size-fits-all” approach – white men around the age of 35 made up the majority of research subject pools and findings were then extrapolated to apply to women, other ethnic groups, children and the elderly. Researchers began to question standard practices as concerns rose around the over-medication of children by using much larger test subject prescriptions. Also playing a role was the realization that symptoms of the same illness may differ between men and women and that certain treatment regimens work differently for different ethnic populations. There’s been a shift towards [More]