Laura D Kubzansky
Biographic Data
| ID | 919992 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Laura D Kubzansky |
| GIVEN NAMES | Laura D |
| FAMILY NAME | Kubzansky |
| SIGNATURE | KUBZANSKY L D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4039-2235 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 89 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 259 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 88 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Disrupting the path to cardiovascular disease: Stress-related coping and onset of hypertension and obesity
OBJECTIVE: Accumulating research suggests stress-related coping contributes to cardiovascular disease risk, but its association with upstream cardiometabolic conditions remains unexplored. We examined whether coping strategies generally deemed adaptive (e.g., acceptance) and maladaptive (e.g., self-blame), as well as variability in their use (reflecting attempts to find the best strategies for managing stressors) predict risk of developing hypert…
Caregiving responsibilities, living alone, and mental health among older women during a time of collective stress
Effects of caregiving responsibilities and living alone are not uniform, even during times of heightened stress. Caregiving stress and social support matter. Overlooking key contextual factors may lead to missed opportunities for prevention and intervention
Prosocial Intentions and Subsequent Cognitive Health: A Prospective Cohort Study
Objectives Prosociality, defined as positive other-regarding intentions and behaviors, is a modifiable factor demonstrated to be associated with better mental, physical, and cognitive health in older adults. Prior studies have largely focused on individual prosocial behaviors, especially volunteering. This study examines whether prosocial intentions are associated with maintaining cognitive health over time. Methods Data are from 7,844 adults age…
Optimism and cognitive functioning trajectories in a cohort of aging men
Objectives Robust evidence supports optimism as an asset for good physical and emotional health in aging populations, but its role in cognitive aging remains understudied. This study evaluated whether higher optimism levels would be prospectively associated with higher initial levels and slower decline in cognitive functioning over 26 years in a community-dwelling cohort of aging men. Methods Participants included 847 men from the Veterans Affair…
Sense of Assurance, Safety, and Security (Sass) in Youths: A Public Health Perspective
Are the ways women cope with stressors related to their health behaviors over time
OBJECTIVE: Emerging research suggests the use of certain strategies to cope with stressors relate to disease and mortality risk, and lifestyle habits may be underlying mechanisms. Studies show psychological symptoms (eg, anxiety) and states (eg, happiness) predict the likelihood of adopting an integrated lifestyle that encompasses key health-related behaviors, like smoking. Yet, whether psychological processes, including stress-related coping, in…
Broken Ties: Black Americans' Diminished Return of Socioeconomic Status on Subjective Well-being
Minorities' Diminished Return (MDR) theory suggests systematically smaller effects of socioeconomic status (SES) indicators on the health of non-white populations compared to white in the United States (US). We test whether MDR theory holds with regard to subjective well-being (SWB) by investigating racial differences in the association between SES and SWB in the US using data from the Gallup Healthways survey. Our analysis included 126,669 non-H…
Associations of nature contact with emotional ill-being and well-being: The role of emotion regulation
Nature contact has associations with emotional ill-being and well-being. However, the mechanisms underlying these associations are not fully understood. We hypothesised that increased adaptive and decreased maladaptive emotion regulation strategies would be a pathway linking nature contact to ill-being and well-being. Using data from a survey of 600 U.S.-based adults administered online in 2022, we conducted structural equation modelling to test …
Fulfilled Mind, Healthy Gut? Relationships of Eudaimonic Psychological Well-Being With the Gut Microbiome in Postmenopausal Women
OBJECTIVE: Eudaimonic facets of psychological well-being (PWB), like purpose in life and sense of mastery, are associated with healthy aging. Variation in the gut microbiome may be one pathway by which mental health influences age-related health outcomes. However, associations between eudaimonic PWB and the gut microbiome are understudied. We examined whether purpose in life and sense of mastery, separately, were associated with features of the g…
Prepandemic Resilience to Trauma and Covid-19 Infection in Older Women
OBJECTIVE: Prior work suggests that psychological resilience to trauma may protect not only mental but also physical health. This study examined the relationship of prepandemic psychological resilience to lifetime trauma with self-reported COVID-19 infection and symptoms during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Data are from 18,670 longitudinal cohort participants in the Nurses' Health Study II. Based on prior evidence that traum…
Purpose in Life and Its Association to Parkinsonism
Higher purpose was associated with lower hazards of incident parkinsonism and lower levels of parkinsonian signs at baseline. Associations were seen even after adjustment for a wide range of covariates. Findings suggest higher purpose may contribute to maintenance of healthy physical function among older adults
Emotional Well-Being: What It Is and Why It Matters
Epigenome-Wide Analysis of DNA Methylation and Optimism in Women and Men
OBJECTIVE: Higher optimism is associated with reduced mortality and a lower risk of age-related chronic diseases. DNA methylation (DNAm) may provide insight into mechanisms underlying these relationships. We hypothesized that DNAm would differ among older individuals who are more versus less optimistic. METHODS: Using cross-sectional data from two population-based cohorts of women with diverse races/ethnicities ( n = 3816) and men (only White, n …
The Missing Piece: A Population Health Perspective to Address the U.S. Mental Health Crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic has enhanced our focus on mental health. Concerns about the high levels of mental disorders in the United States are not new, with rising trends-particularly among youth-observed prior to the pandemic. However, the pandemic may have exacerbated and accelerated these trends. The silver lining is that we can leverage this moment to reevaluate and reimagine not only how we treat mental health problems, but also how we promote e…
Author Correction: Prosociality should be a public health priority
Prosociality should be a public health priority
Working from Home and Worker Well-being: New Evidence from Germany
The COVID-19 pandemic piqued interest in remote work, but research yields mixed findings on the impact of working from home on workers' well-being and job attitudes. The authors develop a conceptual distinction between working from home that occurs during regular work hours (replacement work-from-home) and working from home that occurs outside of those hours (extension work-from-home). Using linked establishment-employee survey data from Germany,…
Optimism and Longevity Among Japanese Older Adults
Plasma Metabolomic Signature of Early Abuse in Middle-Aged Women
OBJECTIVE: Metabolomic profiling may provide insights into biological mechanisms underlying the strong epidemiologic links observed between early abuse and cardiometabolic disorders in later life. METHODS: We examined the associations between early abuse and midlife plasma metabolites in two nonoverlapping subsamples from the Nurses' Health Study II, comprising 803 (mean age = 40 years) and 211 women (mean age = 61 years). Liquid chromatography-t…
Optimism, Daily Stressors, and Emotional Well-Being Over Two Decades in a Cohort of Aging Men
Findings from a sample of older men suggest that optimism may be associated with more favorable emotional well-being in later life through differences in stressor exposure rather than emotional stress response. Optimism may preserve emotional well-being among older adults by engaging emotion regulation strategies that occur relatively early in the emotion-generative process
Residential addiction treatment providers: Identifying the role of social context in worker health and turnover
A life course approach to understanding stress exposures and cognitive function among middle-aged and older adults
These findings offer support to the hypothesis that stress exposures, accumulated over the life course, worsen cognitive performance, but limited support for the hypothesis that these exposures promote cognitive decline
Measuring Well-Being: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the Social Sciences and the Humanities
Mental Health in Early Childhood and Changes in Cardiometabolic Dysregulation by Preadolescence
OBJECTIVE: Poor mental health in childhood is associated with a greater risk of cardiometabolic disease in adulthood, but less is known about when these associations begin to emerge. This study tests whether poor mental health (indexed by emotional and behavioral problems) in early childhood predicts increases in cardiometabolic dysregulation over 4 years of follow-up. METHODS: Data are from 4327 participants in the Generation R Study. Problem be…
Specificity in Associations of Anger Frequency and Expression With Different Causes of Mortality Over 20 Years
OBJECTIVE: Although evidence has linked anger and hostility with all-cause mortality risk, less research has examined whether anger frequency and expression (outwardly expressing angry feelings) are linked to all-cause and cause-specific mortality. METHODS: In 1996, men (n = 17,352) free of medical conditions from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study reported anger frequency and aggressive expression levels. Deaths were ascertained from parti…
Gender differences in religious practices, spiritual experiences and health: Results from the US General Social Survey
Neighborhood Effects on the Self-Rated Health of Elders: Uncovering the Relative Importance of Structural and Service-Related Neighborhood Environments
We found support for the role of neighborhood structural context (reflected through measures of poverty, residential stability, and age-based demographic concentration) in predicting the health of elders. Density of neighborhood services did not appear to have an independent effect on the self-rated health of elders
The heart's content: The association between positive psychological well-being and cardiovascular health
This review investigates the association between positive psychological well-being (PPWB) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). We also consider the mechanisms by which PPWB may be linked with CVD, focusing on the health behaviors (e.g., smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, sleep quality and quantity, and food consumption) and biological functions (e.g., cardiovascular, inflammatory, and metabolic processes) that are most relevant for car…
Relation of female gender and low socioeconomic status to internalizing symptoms among adolescents: A case of double jeopardy
Social Distribution of Social Support: The Mediating Role of Life Events
Although the relation of socioeconomic status (SES) to social support has been discussed for some time, researchers have rarely systematically examined the social patterning of this resource. In addition, potential explanatory mechanisms have not been investigated. This study examined both the social distribution of social support and the role of life events in the association between SES and social support in a nationally representative probabil…
Parental warmth and flourishing in mid-life
Identifying Perceived Neighborhood Stressors Across Diverse Communities in New York City
There is growing interest in the role of psychosocial stress in health disparities. Identifying which social stressors are most important to community residents is critical for accurately incorporating stressor exposures into health research. Using a community‐academic partnered approach, we designed a multi‐community study across the five boroughs of New York City to characterize resident perceptions of key neighborhood stressors. We conducted 1…
Sheepskin effects of education in the 10-year Framingham risk of coronary heart disease
Working from Home and Worker Well-being: New Evidence from Germany
The COVID-19 pandemic piqued interest in remote work, but research yields mixed findings on the impact of working from home on workers' well-being and job attitudes. The authors develop a conceptual distinction between working from home that occurs during regular work hours (replacement work-from-home) and working from home that occurs outside of those hours (extension work-from-home). Using linked establishment-employee survey data from Germany,…
A life course approach to understanding stress exposures and cognitive function among middle-aged and older adults
These findings offer support to the hypothesis that stress exposures, accumulated over the life course, worsen cognitive performance, but limited support for the hypothesis that these exposures promote cognitive decline
It's not easy assessing greenness: A comparison of NDVI datasets and neighborhood types and their associations with self-rated health in New York City
Genetic vulnerability to diabetes and obesity: Does education offset the risk
Work Redesign for the 21st Century: Promising Strategies for Enhancing Worker Well-Being
Work is a key social determinant of population health and well-being. Yet, efforts to improve worker well-being in the United States are often focused on changing individual health behaviors via employer wellness programs. The COVID-19 health crisis has brought into sharp relief some of the limitations of current approaches, revealing structural conditions that heighten the vulnerability of workers and their families to physical and psychosocial …
Social Conditions and Distress in Elderly Persons: Findings From the MacArthur Studies of Successful Aging
The purpose of this study was to determine separate and joint associations of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) with psychological distress among older high-functioning adults and to examine 2 psychosocial resources that may explain these associations. Participants were 70-79-year-old individuals (n = 1,189) participating in the MacArthur Studies of Successful Aging program, a 3-site study of community-dwelling men and women. Particip…
Mother's affection at 8 months predicts emotional distress in adulthood
BACKGROUND: Long-standing theory suggests that quality of the mother's (or primary caregiver's) interaction with a child is a key determinant of the child's subsequent resilience or vulnerability and has implications for health in adulthood. However, there is a dearth of longitudinal data with both objective assessments of nurturing behaviour during infancy and sustained follow-up ascertaining the quality of adult functioning. METHODS: We used da…
Prospective Change in Health-Related Quality of Life and Subsequent Mortality Among Middle-Aged and Older Women
Objectives. We sought to determine prospective changes in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measures and subsequent mortality in middle-aged and older women. Methods. We obtained data from 40 337 healthy women from the Nurses’ Health Study aged 46 to 71 years in 1992. We used Cox proportional hazards regression to evaluate associations of changes in self-assessed physical and mental component summary (PCS and MCS) scores from the Short Form …
The Missing Piece: A Population Health Perspective to Address the U.S. Mental Health Crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic has enhanced our focus on mental health. Concerns about the high levels of mental disorders in the United States are not new, with rising trends-particularly among youth-observed prior to the pandemic. However, the pandemic may have exacerbated and accelerated these trends. The silver lining is that we can leverage this moment to reevaluate and reimagine not only how we treat mental health problems, but also how we promote e…
Prosociality should be a public health priority
Psychiatric, Psychological, and Social Determinants of Health in the Nurses’ Health Study Cohorts
Objectives. To review the contribution of the Nurses’ Health Studies (NHS) on factors that influence mental and physical health. Methods. Narrative review of all published articles using data from the NHS, the NHS II, and the Growing Up Today Study focusing on mental health conditions (e.g., depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety) and psychosocial resources and stressors (e.g., job strain, interpersonal violence, social relationships,…
Residential addiction treatment providers: Identifying the role of social context in worker health and turnover
The Prospective Association of Social Integration With Life Span and Exceptional Longevity in Women
Better social integration is related to longer life span and greater likelihood of achieving exceptional longevity among midlife women. Findings suggest social integration may be an important psychosocial asset to evaluate for promoting longer, healthier lives
Psychological well-being and restorative biological processes: HDL-C in older English adults
Childhood emotional functioning and the developmental origins of cardiovascular disease risk
BACKGROUND: Dysregulated emotional functioning has been linked with higher cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk among adults. Early life experiences may influence the development of adulthood CVD, but few studies have examined whether potential damaging effects of dysregulated emotional function begin earlier in life. Therefore, we examined associations of child emotional functioning and the 10-year risk of developing CVD in midlife. METHODS: We stu…
Affective States and Health
This chapter examines the growing evidence suggesting a link between the social environment and health outcomes. It explores how social conditions, experienced within the family, neighborhood, and workplace, can impact an individual's health. The authors propose that one pathway through which these social conditions affect health is through emotions and their subsequent physiological, cognitive, and behavioral responses. The chapter likely delves…
Is Educational Attainment Associated With Shared Determinants of Health in the Elderly? Findings From the MacArthur Studies of Successful Aging
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association of educational attainment with an array of risk factors for poor health among high-functioning older men and women. METHODS: Cross-sectional analyses of psychosocial, behavioral, and biological factors and educational attainment were conducted using data from a population-based cohort study of older men and women. Participants consisted of 70- to 79-year-old residents of communities of East Boston, MA; Ne…
Social Conditions and Distress in Elderly Persons: Findings From the MacArthur Studies of Successful Aging
The purpose of this study was to determine separate and joint associations of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) with psychological distress among older high-functioning adults and to examine 2 psychosocial resources that may explain these associations. Participants were 70-79-year-old individuals (n = 1,189) participating in the MacArthur Studies of Successful Aging program, a 3-site study of community-dwelling men and women. Particip…
Affective States and Health
This chapter examines the growing evidence suggesting a link between the social environment and health outcomes. It explores how social conditions, experienced within the family, neighborhood, and workplace, can impact an individual's health. The authors propose that one pathway through which these social conditions affect health is through emotions and their subsequent physiological, cognitive, and behavioral responses. The chapter likely delves…
Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full? A Prospective Study of Optimism and Coronary Heart Disease in the Normative Aging Study
OBJECTIVE: A sense of optimism, which derives from the ways individuals explain causes of daily events, has been shown to protect health, whereas pessimism has been linked to poor physical health. We examined prospectively the relationship of an optimistic or pessimistic explanatory style with coronary heart disease incidence in the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study, an ongoing cohort of older men. METHODS AND RESULTS: In 1986, 1306 men comp…
Anger Expression and Risk of Stroke and Coronary Heart Disease Among Male Health Professionals
OBJECTIVE: Anger expression is a dimension of anger that may be strongly related to coronary heart disease and stroke. To date few cohort studies have evaluated the role of anger coping style in the development of cardiovascular disease. This study prospectively examined the effects of anger expression on incidence of cardiovascular disease. METHODS: Participants were male health professionals (N = 23,522), aged 50 to 85 years old and without pre…
Social Distribution of Social Support: The Mediating Role of Life Events
Although the relation of socioeconomic status (SES) to social support has been discussed for some time, researchers have rarely systematically examined the social patterning of this resource. In addition, potential explanatory mechanisms have not been investigated. This study examined both the social distribution of social support and the role of life events in the association between SES and social support in a nationally representative probabil…
Early Manifestations of Personality and Adult Emotional Functioning
Developmental antecedents to adult emotional functioning were investigated in an epidemiologic study using theories of personality and emotion. The authors tested whether different types of adult emotional distress can be linked to childhood personality attributes. Using data from 3,138 children at age 7, measures of 4 childhood personality attributes were developed and validated: Behavioral Inhibition, Distress Proneness, Attention, and Inapprop…
The epidemiology, pathophysiology, and management of psychosocial risk factors in cardiac practice
Neighborhood Contextual Influences on Depressive Symptoms in the Elderly
To understand whether neighborhood contexts contribute to the onset or maintenance of mental health problems independently of individual characteristics requires the use of multilevel study designs and analytical strategies. This study used a multilevel analytical framework to examine the relation between neighborhood context and risk of depressive symptoms, using data from the New Haven component of the Established Populations for Epidemiologic …
The Clinical Impact of Negative Psychological States: Expanding the Spectrum of Risk for Coronary Artery Disease
OBJECTIVES: Research has demonstrated a gradient relationship between depression and the risk of adverse cardiovascular events among both initially healthy individuals and those with known cardiac disease. Moreover, recent investigators have demonstrated that adverse outcomes are even associated with the presence of relatively mild symptoms, as measured by self-report scales like the Beck Depression Inventory. The association between even mild de…
Psychologic Functioning and Physical Health: A Paradigm of Flexibility
Recent evidence suggests that positive psychologic factors may be protective against coronary artery disease (CAD). We consider this possibility through a paradigm that explores three interrelated factors that may promote healthy psychologic functioning: vitality, emotional flexibility, and coping flexibility. Vitality is a positive and restorative emotional state that is associated with a sense of enthusiasm and energy. Flexibility is related bo…
Social Networks, Social Support, and Survival After Breast Cancer Diagnosis
PURPOSE: We prospectively examined social ties and survival after breast cancer diagnosis. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Participants included 2,835 women from the Nurses' Health Study who were diagnosed with stages 1 to 4 breast cancer between 1992 and 2002. Of these women, 224 deaths (107 of these related to breast cancer) accrued to the year 2004. Social networks were assessed in 1992, 1996, and 2000 with the Berkman-Syme Social Networks Index. Social…
Do Depression and Anxiety Mediate the Link Between Educational Attainment and CHD
Objective: Depression and anxiety are frequently hypothesized yet rarely examined pathways linking low socioeconomic status (SES) to coronary heart disease (CHD). This study evaluates depression and anxiety as mediators of the association between educational attainment and incident CHD. Methods: Subjects (n = 6265, age 25–74) were participants in NHANES I and follow-up studies, a longitudinal, nationally representative study of the US population.…
Neighborhood Effects on the Self-Rated Health of Elders: Uncovering the Relative Importance of Structural and Service-Related Neighborhood Environments
We found support for the role of neighborhood structural context (reflected through measures of poverty, residential stability, and age-based demographic concentration) in predicting the health of elders. Density of neighborhood services did not appear to have an independent effect on the self-rated health of elders
Gender differences in religious practices, spiritual experiences and health: Results from the US General Social Survey
Multiple Sources of Psychosocial Disadvantage and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease
OBJECTIVES: To examine the co-occurrence of multiple sources of psychosocial disadvantage in association with risk of incident coronary heart disease (CHD). It was hypothesized that increased co-occurring psychosocial disadvantage would be associated with increased risk of CHD in a monotonic fashion. While both social and psychological disadvantage are associated with increased risk of CHD, indicators of psychosocial disadvantage are traditionall…
Religious Service Attendance and Allostatic Load Among High-Functioning Elderly
OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between frequency of religious service attendance and an index of cumulative physiological dysregulation as measured by allostatic load (AL) (systolic and diastolic blood pressure, waist/hip ratio, high-density lipoprotein and total cholesterol, glycosylated hemoglobin, cortisol, serum dihydroepiandrosterone sulfate, norepinephrine, and epinephrine). There is growing empirical evidence of a positive relations…
Prospective Change in Health-Related Quality of Life and Subsequent Mortality Among Middle-Aged and Older Women
Objectives. We sought to determine prospective changes in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measures and subsequent mortality in middle-aged and older women. Methods. We obtained data from 40 337 healthy women from the Nurses’ Health Study aged 46 to 71 years in 1992. We used Cox proportional hazards regression to evaluate associations of changes in self-assessed physical and mental component summary (PCS and MCS) scores from the Short Form …
Relation of female gender and low socioeconomic status to internalizing symptoms among adolescents: A case of double jeopardy
Women, Loneliness, and Incident Coronary Heart Disease
OBJECTIVE: To examine associations between loneliness and risk of incident coronary heart disease (CHD) over a 19-year follow-up period in a community sample of men and women. Loneliness, the perceived discrepancy between actual and desired social relationships, has been linked to several adverse health outcomes. However, no previous research has prospectively examined the association between loneliness and incident CHD in a community sample of m…
Protocol for an experimental investigation of the roles of oxytocin and social support in neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, and subjective responses to stress across age and gender
Understanding the determinants of healthy aging is a major public health priority and identifying effective measures to prevent or delay the onset of chronic diseases is an important goal. Experimental research on oxytocin, social relationships, and health in adulthood will contribute to the scientific knowledge base for maximizing active life and health expectancy. At conclusion of the study we will have solid evidence concerning the effects of …
Ancillary Benefits for Caregivers of Children with Asthma Participating in an Environmental Intervention Study to Alleviate Asthma Symptoms
Quality of Parental Emotional Care and Calculated Risk for Coronary Heart Disease
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate associations between perceived quality of parental emotional care and calculated 10-year risk for coronary heart disease (CHD). Little is understood about the role of parental emotional care in contributing to the risk for CHD. METHODS: The study sample was composed of 267 participants from the New England Family Study. Quality of parental emotional care was measured, using a validated short version of the Parental Bonding …
A framework for examining social stress and susceptibility to air pollution in respiratory health
There is growing interest in disentangling the health effects of spatially clustered social and physical environmental exposures and in exploring potential synergies among them, with particular attention directed to the combined effects of psychosocial stress and air pollution. Both exposures may be elevated in lower-income urban communities, and it has been hypothesized that stress, which can influence immune function and susceptibility, may pot…
Do Psychological Risk Factors Predict the Presence of Coronary Atherosclerosis
OBJECTIVE: To assess how clinical and psychological variables compare in their ability to predict coronary artery calcium (CAC) in a broad spectrum of subjects. Although prior studies reported contradictory findings on the association between psychological risk factors and CAC, psychological risk factors have not yet been compared with concurrent clinical coronary risk factors for their association to CAC measurements. METHODS: We performed resea…
Medicine (74 works) · Psychology (62 works) · Internal Medicine (41 works) · Internal Medicine (35 works) · Psychiatry (34 works) · Clinical Psychology (29 works) · Health disparities and outcomes (25 works) · Demography (24 works) · Gerontology (23 works) · Developmental psychology (22 works)