CSDE Affiliate Gregory Bratman (Environmental and Forest Sciences) released research with co-authors in Cognition and Emotion, titled “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. Authors hypothesized 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, they conducted structural equation modeling to test their hypotheses. Their findings support and extend previous work that demonstrates that the associations of nature contact with emotional ill-being and well-being may be partly explained by changes in emotion regulation.

CSDE Affiliates Avanti Adhia (Nursing) and Ali Rowhani-Rahbar (Epidemiology, Pediatrics) authored research with colleagues in Pediatrics, titled “Threats, Violence, and Weapon Use Against Children in Domestic Violence Protection Order“. The study was lead-authored by Alice Ellyson (Pediatrics) and all three listed authors are members of UW’s Firearm Injury & Policy Research Program (FIPRP). Childhood exposure to domestic violence is common, but the overlap between threats and violence against children and weapon/firearm use has not been well studied. The objectives of this study were to: assess differences in respondent firearm access and the use of weapons in granted domestic violence protection orders (DVPOs) with and without minors (individuals <18 years of age); and characterize the frequency and characteristics of threats and acts of violence against minors.

CSDE Affiliate Stephanie Cook (Biostatistics and Social & Behavioral Health, New York University) released an article with co-authors in JMIR Formative Research, titled “Assessment of a Daily Diary Study Including Biospecimen Collections in a Sample of Sexual and Gender Minority Young Adults: Feasibility and Acceptability Study“. Young sexual minority men (YSMM) engage in cardiometabolic risk behaviors (eg, substance use) at higher rates than their heterosexual counterparts. Theory and previous research suggest that these risk behaviors may stem, in part, from exposure to minority stress (ie, discrimination based on sexual identity and other identities such as race). This pilot study examined the feasibility and acceptability of a virtual 2-day daily diary study that examined daily experiences with discrimination, cardiometabolic risk behaviors (ie, sleep, physical activity, and substance use behaviors), and patterns of physiological stress and inflammation among YSMM aged 18 to 35 years. The authors found that the study protocol was both feasible and acceptable for YSMM and participants were willing to engage in longer-term diary studies (e.g., over 2 weeks). Participants also noted potential barriers to engaging in the study protocol, including redundancy of survey items and daily stressors getting in the way of completing the surveys, which should be considered in future study designs.

 

CSDE Affiliate Nicole Errett (Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences) published an article with colleagues in Plos One, titled “Assessing community-level impacts of and responses to stay at home orders: The King County COVID-19 community study“. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) of unprecedented scope and duration were implemented to limit community spread of COVID-19. There remains limited evidence about how these measures impacted the lived experience of affected communities. This study captured the early impacts and coping strategies implemented in King County, Washington, one of the first U.S. communities impacted by COVID-19.

CSDE Affiliate Dafeng Xu (Public Policy & Governance) recently published an article in Social Science & Medicine, titled “The Wording Matters: Gender Equality Laws and Women’s Attitudes Towards Domestic Violence in Africa“. In this paper, researchers documented the association between specific wordings regarding domestic violence within gender equality laws and women’s attitudes towards domestic violence in African countries. To do so, they used data on the longitudinal Demographic and Health Survey conducted between 2003 and 2018, and empirically conducted a difference-in-differences analysis that captures variations in the country and timing of the inclusion of specific wordings addressing domestic violence in the legislative framework that encompasses the general principle of gender equality.