Etiologies of the rising prevalence and morbidity of asthma are not well understood. Knowledge gaps are particularly significant with respect to adult-onset asthma. The role of stress in the expression of asthma is largely unexplored in large-scale, prospective, epidemiologic studies and such investigation has been identified as a priority by a recent NHLBI expert panel. The overall goal of the proposed study is to prospectively examine the association between a specific chronic life stressor (i.e., intimate violence exposure) and adult asthma in women participating in the Nurses' Health Study II cohort. Emerging epidemiologic data suggest that exposure to intimate violence is a pervasive chronic life stressor associated with adverse impact on womens' psychological and physical health. Traumatic stress such as that related to intimate violence exposure has been associated with neuroendocrine changes known to cause alterations in neuroendocrine and immune functions important to the pathophysiology of inflammatory diseases including asthma. We hypothesize that women exposed to high-level chronic stress (violence) will be at greater risk for asthma development than women with low-level stress (violence) exposure. The influence of chronic stress on neuroendocrine and immune function as reflected in morning cortisol expression, for the former, and cytokine profiles and IgE production (T-helper cell polarization), for the latter, will also be examined in a nested case control fashion among these women. To our knowledge, this would be the first large-scale (N=64,000) longitudinal study of the association between a specific chronic life stressor (i.e., violence) and the incidence of asthma in adult women.
| Bertone-Johnson, Elizabeth R; Whitcomb, Brian W; Missmer, Stacey A et al. (2014) Early life emotional, physical, and sexual abuse and the development of premenstrual syndrome: a longitudinal study. J Womens Health (Larchmt) 23:729-39 |
| Mason, Susan M; Flint, Alan J; Roberts, Andrea L et al. (2014) Posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and food addiction in women by timing and type of trauma exposure. JAMA Psychiatry 71:1271-8 |
| Austin, S Bryn; Pazaris, Mathew J; Wei, Esther K et al. (2014) Application of the Rosner-Wei risk-prediction model to estimate sexual orientation patterns in colon cancer risk in a prospective cohort of US women. Cancer Causes Control 25:999-1006 |
| Mason, Susan M; Flint, Alan J; Field, Alison E et al. (2013) Abuse victimization in childhood or adolescence and risk of food addiction in adult women. Obesity (Silver Spring) 21:E775-81 |
| Mason, Susan M; Wright, Rosalind J; Hibert, Eileen N et al. (2013) Intimate partner violence and incidence of type 2 diabetes in women. Diabetes Care 36:1159-65 |
| Austin, S Bryn; Pazaris, Mathew J; Nichols, Lauren P et al. (2013) An examination of sexual orientation group patterns in mammographic and colorectal screening in a cohort of U.S. women. Cancer Causes Control 24:539-47 |
| Boynton-Jarrett, Renée; Wright, Rosalind J; Putnam, Frank W et al. (2013) Childhood abuse and age at menarche. J Adolesc Health 52:241-7 |
| Roberts, Andrea L; Galea, Sandro; Austin, S Bryn et al. (2012) Posttraumatic stress disorder across two generations: concordance and mechanisms in a population-based sample. Biol Psychiatry 72:505-11 |
| Bertone-Johnson, Elizabeth R; Whitcomb, Brian W; Missmer, Stacey A et al. (2012) Inflammation and early-life abuse in women. Am J Prev Med 43:611-20 |
| Jun, Hee-Jin; Corliss, Heather L; Nichols, Lauren P et al. (2012) Adult body mass index trajectories and sexual orientation: the Nurses' Health Study II. Am J Prev Med 42:348-54 |
Showing the most recent 10 out of 41 publications
