We aim to conduct research that leads to social ecological lens, which recognizes that the population-level distribution of disease is driven by societal structures, institutions, policies, and the environment, which can enhance or undermine health and play a profound role in generating health inequities. These “social determinants of health” shape health trajectories by influencing individual behavioral factors and increasing biological vulnerability. These processes start early in the life course, including in utero via epigenetic mechanisms and maternal stress exposure; and continue to operate throughout human development—spanning from infancy through later adulthood. The Society, Health, and Racial Equity (SHARE) Lab is intended to be the locus of transdisciplinary developmental approaches to research on the role of societal forces in shaping the population-level distribution of health outcomes, and in particular, racial inequities in health.We place an emphasis on connecting laboratory-based research to population sciences, including interactions between social-contextual factors and psychobiological mechanisms impacting disease risk.
Promoting Color Brave Conversations in Families: A Public Health Strategy to Advance Racial Equity
This study focuses on the role that families can have in addressing racism, an important yet under-leveraged point of intervention. This study will assess the efficacy of a multi-module mobile app intervention program in promoting productive, color-conscious, and anti-racism conversations between parents and their children.
Uncovering COVID-19 Experiences and Realities (UnCOVER) Study
Major Goals: The UnCOVER Study examines how people’s experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic—including experiences of illness and bereavement, coping behaviors, disruptions to work and housing, impact on income, and family life, among others—have been unfolding along racial lines.
Black Women’s Experiences Living with Lupus (BeWELL) Study
This study investigates psychobiological mechanisms through which racism-related psychosocial stressors exacerbate lupus among African American women. It is the most in-depth investigation of the multifactorial nature of psychosocial stress and their impact on disease progression among African American women with lupus.
Psychobiology of Racial Minority Stress and Cellular Aging
This project is aimed at integrating research on biomarkers of inflammation, endocrine stress markers, and leukocyte telomere length (LTL) in epidemiologic studies of racism and health.
Macon Lives Healthier Study
African Americans in the rural South face unique environmental and psychosocial stressors that can lead to accelerated aging and poorer health outcomes. This research identifies social factors that are important for health among people in Macon County, Alabama.
COLLABORATIONS
Strengths and Stressors Study
(PI: Lisa Bowleg, George Washington University)
This study examines stress at the intersection between sexual identity and socioeconomic position in relation to health and disease risk among Black men.
African American Resilience in Surviving Cancer (ARISE)
(PI: Felicity Harper, Wayne State University)
This study examines health-related quality of life among African American breast and prostate cancer survivors.
Racial Social Structure and Adverse Birth Outcomes
(PI: David Curtis, University of Utah)
This project investigates racial societal stressors as predictors of adverse birth outcomes experienced by Black mothers.
Social-Environmental Predictors of Sleep Disparities During the Transition to College
(PI: Tiffany Yip, Fordham University)
This study determines the impact of social and environmental stress on racial disparities in sleep during and after the transition to college.
Structural Discrimination and Discrimination in Older Men’s Health Inequities
(PI: Jesus Valles-Ramirez, San Francisco State University)
The purpose of this study is to assess the relationships among health, structural racism and discrimination, stigma, resources, and biomarkers of health and aging in older men among sexually and racially diverse older men.
Improving COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake Among Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups with Rheumatic Diseases
(PI: Mario Danila, University of Alabama, Birmingham)
This study utilizes community engaged methods to develop and test the effectiveness of a multi-modal intervention that combines “storytelling” videos and patient navigation to increase COVID-19 vaccination uptake among Black and Latinx AIRD patients.
Health Inequities at the Intersection of the HIV and Substance Use Epidemics
(MPI: Heidi Crane, Rob Fredericksen, Andrew Hahn, University of Washington)
The goal of this study is to develop a better understanding of social, cultural, structural and other factors that lead to health disparities for underserved racial/ethnic and marginalized populations of people with HIV at the intersection of substance use and HIV.