As laws regarding medical and recreational cannabis use are changing across the United States, one must begin to understand the effects among individuals with chronic pain. Specifically, it is unclear how legalization may change their use of marijuana and opioids to self-medicate or for recreational use. To address these questions,...
Background: Individuals rapidly infer character traits and behaviors through the process of facial perception. Perceptions of trustworthiness, accurate or not, completed by authorities in the criminal justice system may have implications for individuals suspected of crimes, including harsher or longer sentencing decisions. Objective: The present study concerned how the presence...
Mental health issues such as depression are increasingly prevalent in college students. However, research on disparities in mental health problems in students of color in college has been limited. In the present study, we used the Healthy Minds Study (HMS) data collected on mental health of college students from 2018-2019...
Vitamin D sufficiency supports cardiovascular health and lower cancer risk. Rates of vitamin D insufficiency vary by racial/ethnic group, in part because skin pigment limits sunlight penetration. However race/ethnicity is an unreliable marker of vitamin D deficiency, given individual differences in skin pigment, or phototype, and other characteristics. Clarifying associations...
Background. Flourishing is negatively related with depression, but has been proposed as a separate axis and an independent aspect of overall mental health. One factor that has been shown to affect both depression and flourishing is racial discrimination. This study hypothesizes that, in young undergraduate women of color, discrimination experiences...
Through the use of daily online surveys, this study investigated the weekly trends associated with college binge drinking. It also investigated the relationship between personality risk factors and binge drinking. Personality risk factors were assessed using the TCI measures of novelty seeking and harm avoidance, and the ATQ measure of...
Previous literature consistently demonstrates a link between binge drinking and sexual assault among college students. State alcohol control policies, particularly tax policies, are established as important predictors of college binge drinking but have not been examined in relation to sexual assault. This study used merged data on student demographics and...
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a mood disorder that is characterized by depressive symptoms that onset and remit at the same times each year. Whereas few people (about 1%) experience problems severe enough to be labeled SAD, many people (estimates range from 30%-90%) may experience mild to moderate changes in...
Seasonality is defined as a change in mood and behavior with the seasons. Research shows there is a possible connection between vitamin D levels and mood (Murphy & Wagner, 2008; Lansdowne & Provost, 1998). Given that vitamin D is produced when skin is exposed to sunlight and varies with sun...
Objective: In 2018, suicide was the leading cause of death for individuals between the ages of 10-24 in Oregon (OHA, 2019) and was the second leading cause of death for this age range in 2020 (OHA, 2021). In 2019, 12% of Black high school students reported a suicide attempt in...