At the beginning of 2018, the American Psychological Association published its first comprehensive report on stress and health disparities, compiled by a working group of interdisciplinary scientists from top institutions around the country, which included the University of Pittsburgh’s Peter Gianaros.
A professor of psychology and of psychiatry, Gianaros studies how the human brain influences and is influenced by physical health — particularly cardiovascular health, a major focus of the APA report. He directs the behavioral neurophysiology lab at Pitt and he is the former director of the Multimodal Neuroimaging Training Program of Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University. The National Institutes of Health recently awarded Gianaros and Anna Marsland, also a professor of psychology and leading expert on the immune system and stress, funding to study socioeconomic disadvantage and brain aging.
“The new APA report is timely. Discrimination, living in poverty, and other sources of stress are linked to inequalities in health and longevity,” Gianaros said. “These problems will continue to grow unless there is more evidence-based support and advocacy for research funding on health disparities, greater public education and awareness, and community-level interventions that promote health equality for everyone in this country. The work that Dr. Marsland and I are doing is directed at better understanding and addressing these pressing issues.”