CARDIA CHICAGO FC DIVERSITY SUPPLEMENT - TASK AREA E

Northwestern University At Chicago, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

The candidate?s long-term goal is to become an independent investigator examining how psychosocial factors, in particular depressive symptoms, impact cardiovascular health among vulnerable populations. The proposed supplement will provide a specialized 2-year training plan that will enable the candidate to develop expertise in the psychosocial determinants of cardiovascular health, advanced longitudinal data analysis, and grant writing. The mentoring team will ensure a seamlessly transition into independence following completion of the supplement and the research plan will enhance the candidate?s research capabilities. Depressive symptoms are well-established predictors of CVD. However, most studies assess depressive symptoms at a single timepoint, an approach that neglects to account for the dynamic nature of depression. The few studies that include repeated measures, typically use conventional modeling approaches which assume individuals within a population have a single trajectory that can adequately capture average change across all individuals. These approaches can lead to errors because the course of depressive symptoms over the lifetime is highly heterogeneous.