The PI is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at California State University San Marcos. Her long-term goal is to sustain an independent research career examining mechanisms between socio-cultural factors, maternal affect and child outcomes related to mood dysregulation in the perinatal period.
The aim of the proposed research is to examine the associations between prenatal exposure to maternal stressors related to cultural adaptation and maternal mental health and subsequent risk of presence of mood dysregulation in preschool aged children as measured by physiological stress vulnerability, emotional reactivity and depressive symptoms in the vulnerable US Mexican population. Prenatal factors have already been collected with a previous AREA grant R15 MH099-498-01A1 (maternal stress, depression and fetal and infant hypothalamic pituitary adrenal [HPA] axis activity). This proposal will follow the same participants and include 2 postnatal assessments of preschool children aged 3-5 years old. Three hypotheses will be tested: 1) greater prenatal exposure to maternal cultural stress and depression will be associated with greater increased negative emotionality and depressive-like symptoms in young children; 2) increased prenatal exposure to maternal cultural stress and depression will be related to increased child hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis as measured by hair cortisol, a non-invasive chronic stress measure, and blunted acute salivary cortisol; 3) cortisol levels that increase over childhood from infancy to preschool aged will be associated with greater negative emotionality and depressive symptoms. With information gained and prenatal information previously collected, we will also determine if fetal cortisol levels moderate or mediate the relationship between maternal variables and child risk/presence of mood dysregulation. The proposed research will follow 126 women of Mexican descent and their children previously recruited during pregnancy. This research has direct consequences for public health as the Mexican-American population is the most rapidly growing group in the US and Mexican-American children are exposed to high levels of stressors beginning in utero, which places them at increased risk for mood dysregulation. Socio-cultural variables may play a role in this increased risk, specifically stress related to cultural adaptation (acculturative stress, discrimination). However, if and the mechanism by which this occurs is unknown. Students will be directly involved at all levels of the project including recruitment and retention of participants, saliva and hair collection, child temperament and symptom assessment, sample management and performance of cortisol assays. The project will provide critical translational research experience for students, with an emphasis on encouraging racial/ethnic minority students, in line with the missions of AREA. This study directly addresses the role of environment and health disparities, two crossing cutting them in the NIMH strategic plan, in risk for mental health disorders in a vulnerable underserved population and provides a foundation that can lead to prenatal and preschool interventions directed toward socio-cultural factors in the high-risk Mexican-American population.
The Mexican-American population is the most rapidly growing group in the US and young children are at risk for developing emotional and behavioral problems which may be driven by prenatal exposure to elevated levels of stress and depression that Mexican-American women experience during pregnancy. The proposed research will examine the association between prenatal exposure to stress related to cultural factors and depressive symptoms during pregnancy on risk and presence of mood dysregulation via measures of physiological stress vulnerability, emotional reactivity and depressive symptoms in preschool children aged 3-5 years old, an underinvestigated potentially useful intervention time point. The information obtained from the proposed research will aid in the design and development of future programs aimed at early identification of those at risk for mental health disorders among the Mexican-American population and provide critical translational research experience for students in line with the missions of AREA.
