Health Psychology最新文献

Objective: Higher well-being is consistently associated with better cognitive health. However, little is known about how long-term trajectories of well-being are associated with cognitive health or modifiable dementia risk factors, particularly among populations at high risk for dementia. The current study addressed these open questions.

Method: The California Families Project, a 14-year longitudinal study of Mexican-origin adults living in the United States (N = 1,240), was used to estimate long-term trajectories of life satisfaction and optimism and whether the level and/or slope of each factor was associated with later cognitive health (i.e., cognitive function and impairment status, and self- and informant-rated memory) and modifiable dementia risk factors (i.e., hearing loss, hypertension, higher body weight, smoking, depression, social isolation, physical inactivity, diabetes, alcohol use, poor sleep quality, inadequate or excessive sleep, inadequate health insurance, and poor self-rated health).

Results: Higher life satisfaction level was associated with better self- and informant-rated memory. More positive life satisfaction change was associated with better self-rated memory only. Higher optimism level was associated with better cognitive function, better self-rated memory, and better informant-rated memory. More positive optimism slope was associated with better cognitive function. Life satisfaction and optimism levels and change were also associated with several modifiable dementia risk factors.

Conclusions: Long-term trajectories of well-being are associated with later levels of cognitive health and modifiable dementia risk factors in Mexican-origin adults living in the United States. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Immigrants comprise approximately 14% of the U.S. population and experience increasing rates of chronic disease after migration that are not wholly attributable to behavioral acculturation. The present study examined whether social stressors commonly experienced by immigrants (e.g., acculturative stress, discrimination) are associated with proinflammatory gene expression in a sample of Chinese immigrants residing in the United States.

Method: Participants (n = 216) in an observational study completed assessments of acculturative stress, perceived discrimination, and social isolation. Participant weight and height were measured during an in-person exam, and fasting blood samples were collected and assayed for inflammatory gene expression.

Results: Greater perceived discrimination was significantly associated with higher levels of inflammatory gene expression controlling for age, sex, body mass index, smoking status, and other demographic variables. Neither acculturative stress nor social isolation was associated with inflammatory gene expression profiles.

Conclusions: This is one of the first studies to examine social stressors in relation to biologic pathways that may underlie the increase in chronic disease risk observed among foreign-born populations. These findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of how social experiences may impact immigrant health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Background and aims: It is important to understand how multidimensional factors, such as observational learning, knowledge, and self-reinforcement, operate in influencing repeated blood donation (RBD) behavior, so that effective interventions can be designed to improve RBD. Grounded in social-cognitive theory, health action process approach, and theory of planned behavior, the present study aimed to test a three-stage social-cognitive process model in predicting RBD behavior.

Method: A total of 850 blood donors (390 females, 460 males; M_age = 25.29 ± 7.16) were recruited from blood donation sites in Zhejiang, China, and completed an online survey measuring the factors from social-cognitive theory at baseline, and their RBD behavior was followed up by checking the blood donation record from the database of the Blood Center in Zhejiang Province 6 months later. Structural equation modeling was used to test the three-stage social-cognitive process models.

Results: Structural equation modeling analyses supported a three-stage social-cognitive process model in which, in the first stage, information sources (observational learning and positive and negative experiences) were associated with outcome expectation. In the second stage, outcome expectation and maintenance self-efficacy serially mediated the relationship between information sources and RBD intention/behavior. In the third stage, RBD intention fully mediated the influence of negative experiences, outcome expectation, and maintenance self-efficacy on RBD behavior.

Conclusions: This study offers valuable insights for designing effective interventions to enhance RBD. Interventions aiming at promoting RBD behavior should reinforce positive outcome expectations and maintenance self-efficacy and mitigate negative experiences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Despite the positive role of social relationships in behavior change, dyadic interventions for smoking have not been consistently successful. This owes, in part, to the fact that dual-smoking cohabiting couples share similar routines, environments, and relational dynamics that can undermine quitting efforts. We adopted an exploratory and descriptive approach to identify distinct profiles of smoking abstinence within dyads, how relationship dynamics relate to these patterns, and whether these patterns predict smoking status at follow-up.

Method: We utilized preexisting data from a pilot RCT examining the effects of partner-involved financial incentives on dyadic abstinence. Both members of 95 dual-smoking couples (52% female, 73% White, M_age = 42.39, SD = 10.57) recruited between 2021 and 2022 provided baseline information about their relational and motivational dynamics, followed by 10 weeks of daily reports of smoking behavior, and biochemically verified quit status at follow-up.

Results: Latent growth mixture models suggested four patterns of dyadic abstinence: Concordant abstainers, Discordant abstainers, Discordant nonabstainers, and Concordant nonabstainers. Treatment arm and motivational and relational dynamics predicted the probability of following specific dyadic patterns of behavior change, and dyadic patterns of change predicted individual and couple quitting status at follow-up.

Conclusions: Our findings underscore the importance of considering that treatment will facilitate coordinated dyadic behavior change for some couples but not all and emphasize the need to better understand when and how mechanisms support long-term abstinence. More work is needed to investigate whether these patterns generalize across samples with more diverse sociodemographic and health characteristics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objectives: The transition to college is associated with increased sleep difficulties. Everyday discrimination is an important social determinant of sleep difficulties, and this study examined associations between precollege exposures to everyday discrimination and sleep during the first year of college. The study also considers the mediating role of daily sleep quality.

Method: Using a combination of longitudinal surveys and daily diaries, the extent to which precollege exposures to everyday discrimination collected in the fall semester predicted sleep difficulties in the spring semester of students' first year in college was investigated in a sample of 628 diverse college students (mean age = 18.54 years). Sleep difficulties included self-reported sleep onset-related disturbance and daytime dysfunction.

Results: Precollege exposures to everyday discrimination were associated with higher levels of daytime dysfunction (but not with sleep disturbance) in the spring semester. Precollege exposures to everyday discrimination were also associated with lower mean levels of daily sleep quality across 14 days; in turn, lower daily sleep quality contributed to higher levels of daytime dysfunction in the spring. Although precollege exposures to everyday discrimination were associated with higher variability in daily sleep quality, variability in daily sleep quality was not associated with sleep difficulties in the spring.

Conclusions: Precollege exposures to everyday discrimination were associated with sleep difficulties in the first year of college, and these sleep concerns are explained by daily-level sleep processes. Targeting daily sleep quality may be an important health lever to improve first-year college students' sleep problems and their transition to college. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Men who experience childhood economic disadvantage may be at elevated risk for subclinical cardiovascular disease in adulthood, showing signs of disease 10 years before women. Leveraging prospective data from men who experienced low levels of family income in infancy/toddlerhood, we examine the variance in adult carotid intima-media thickness (IMT), a putative marker of subclinical atherosclerosis, that is related to cumulative childhood family income.

Method: Data are from 145 men (31.7 years; 47.6% White) who participated in the Pathways to Health study, which is a follow-up study to the Pitt Mother & Infant Project that began in 1991. Between ages 1.5-17 years, participants' parents reported on their annual income on 13 occasions, which were averaged together to calculate their cumulative childhood family income. At age approximately 32 years, men's carotid IMT was measured by a trained technician using ultrasonography. Linear regression was used to examine the association between cumulative childhood family income and adult IMT in an unadjusted model. Then, we controlled for parents' educational attainment, men's socioeconomic status (i.e., income, education, employment), traditional markers of cardiovascular risk (e.g., smoking, blood pressure, adiposity), and race to examine the unique variance in IMT associated with childhood family income.

Results: Cumulative childhood income was negatively associated with adult IMT (β = -.27, p < .01). This association remained statistically reliable when adjusting for parents' educational attainment, adult socioeconomic status, and traditional markers of cardiovascular risk (β = -.24, p = .03).

Conclusions: Pending replication, findings highlight the importance of considering men's economic upbringing when assessing their risk for subclinical atherosclerosis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Advances in the use of biological assessments in Health Psychology have been impressive. Less appreciated is the critical role that strong inference plays in turning these advances into meaningful scientific progress. In this article, I argue for the importance of a multilevel, strong inference perspective informed and inspired by the writings of John Cacioppo, Gary Berntson, and Louis Tassinary in the 1990s.

Method: Metatheoretical review of strong inference issues as applied to health psychology.

Results: This article delineates at least two separable ways in which biological measures are used in health psychology: (a) an index of a psychosocial factor and (b) a mechanism for disease risk. It highlights the inference issues that arise with these questions via a focus on the specificity and generalizability of links between psychosocial factors and biology, as well as the orderly complexity added by a multilevel perspective on strong inference.

Conclusions: Inference issues are of critical importance to our field and have implications for scientific progress and guiding a program of research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Using a hybrid closed-loop system predicts higher time in target glucose range (TIR) for adolescents and young adults with type I diabetes (T1D). However, patients do not always use these systems effectively for self-management. Based on Two Minds Theory, we hypothesized that more automatic and proactive ways of interacting with the system would be associated with higher TIR, whereas more reactive responses to system prompts would not.

Method: We recruited 20 patients with T1D from a diabetes clinic. Participants used the Tandem t:slim X2 with Control-IQ technology (Control-IQ) hybrid closed-loop system. For 2 weeks, they also completed daily surveys about T1D self-management, plus triggered surveys each time they interacted with Control-IQ about their reasons and perceived automaticity.

Results: Proactive reasons for interacting with Control-IQ, such as planning to eat, predicted higher TIR. Reactive interactions, for example, responding to system alerts, did not. In fact, participants had higher TIR when they interacted less often with Control-IQ and administered fewer manual boluses. Self-reported automaticity did not predict TIR, but perceived self-management did. Suspecting high glucose was associated with higher TIR regardless of accuracy.

Conclusions: Adolescents who interacted less intensively and more proactively with a hybrid closed-loop system had better glucose control. Accurate perception of glucose mattered less than believing one's glucose might be too high; it is possible that situationally aware participants detected increases before their glucose went out of range. Better measures of automaticity are needed. Hybrid closed-loop systems help adolescents and young adults self-manage T1D when used in a situationally aware way. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine whether the association between happiness and all-cause mortality persists after adjustment for health status and sociodemographic factors in Japanese adults. The study addressed the gap in understanding the relationship between happiness and mortality in Japanese populations.

Method: A total of 3,187 adults from Minami-Izu, Japan, were included in a prospective study tracking all-cause mortality from October 2016 to October 2023. Happiness was assessed using a single-item, self-report measure of state emotional well-being. Sociodemographic factors (age, sex, marital status, education, and economic status) and health status (body mass index and physical function) were considered as covariates. Binary logistic regression models were used to examine the association between happiness and mortality, adjusted for these factors.

Results: During the follow-up, 277 participants died. The risk of all-cause mortality was higher in those who reported being unhappy compared with those who reported being happy after adjustment for age and sex (OR: 2.69, 95% CI: 1.63-4.44) and also significantly higher in those who reported being unhappy compared with those who reported being happy after adjustment for age, sex, all socioeconomic factors and health status (OR: 1.85, 95% CI: 1.09-3.16). Sensitivity analyses excluding deaths within the first year showed consistent results.

Conclusions: Happiness is independently associated with reduced mortality risk, even after adjustment for sociodemographic and health status factors. These findings highlight the importance of promoting positive well-being in Japanese populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Approximately one in five Black women report experiencing pain during their last sexual encounter (Townes et al., 2019). Although Black women experience dyspareunia more frequently and intensely than their White counterparts, they are less likely to receive a proper diagnosis and treatment (Carter et al., 2019). Despite advancements in genito-pelvic pain/penetration disorder (GPPPD) research, the continued omission of Black women and the failure to consider their lived experiences perpetuate the exclusion of Black women's pain experiences and exacerbate inequities in vulvar pain research. Using an intersectional and Black feminist approach, this socioecological conceptual article explores the sociohistorical, sociostructural, sociocultural, and interpersonal factors that uniquely place Black women at risk of experiencing vulvar pain, developing GPPPD, ignoring their GPPPD symptoms, and receiving misdiagnoses. Theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and interventions that should be implemented in future research with Black women experiencing GPPPD symptoms are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).