New Articles from Annals of Behavioral Medicine and Translational Behavioral Medicine

SBM's two journals, Annals of Behavioral Medicine and Translational Behavioral Medicine: Practice, Policy, Research (TBM), continuously publish online articles, many of which become available before issues are printed. Two recently published Annals and TBM articles are listed below.

SBM members who have paid their 2023 membership dues are able to access the full text of all Annals and TBM online articles via the SBM website by following the steps below.

1. Go to the Members Only section of the SBM website.
2. Log in with your username and password.
3. Click on the Journals link.
4. Click on the title of the journal which you would like to electronically access.

To check your membership status, or if you are having trouble accessing the journals online, please contact the SBM national office at info@sbm.org or (414) 918-3156.

Annals of Behavioral Medicine

Discrimination and Sleep: Differential Effects by Type and Coping Strategy

Angelina Majeno, MPH, MA; Kristine M Molina, PhD; Christine F Frisard, MS; Stephenie C Lemon, PhD; Milagros C Rosal, PhD

Background

Discrimination has been posited as a contributor of sleep disparities for Latinxs. The strategy used to cope with discrimination may reduce or exacerbate its effects on sleep. This study examined whether different types of discrimination (everyday and major lifetime discrimination) were associated with sleep indices (quality, disturbances, efficiency) and whether coping strategy used moderated associations.

Method

Data of Latinx adults (N = 602; 51% women, 65% Dominican, M_age = 46.72 years) come from the Latino Health and Well-being Project, a community-based, cross-sectional study of Latinxs in Lawrence, MA. Multiple linear regressions were estimated separately for each sleep outcome.

Results

Everyday discrimination was significantly associated with poorer sleep quality and greater disturbances; major lifetime discrimination was significantly associated with worse sleep across the three sleep indices. Coping strategy moderated associations between discrimination and sleep. Compared with Latinxs who used passive coping, those who used passive–active coping strategies had poorer sleep quality the more they experienced everyday discrimination. Latinxs who used any active coping strategy, compared with passive coping, had greater sleep disturbances the more frequently they experienced major lifetime discrimination.

Conclusions

Findings show that everyday discrimination and major lifetime discrimination are associated with different dimensions of sleep and suggest that coping with discrimination may require the use of different strategies depending on the type of discrimination experienced.

 

Support-Giving Is Associated With Lower Systemic Inflammation

Tristen K Inagaki, PhD; Gabriella M Alvarez, MA; Edward Orehek, PhD; Rebecca A Ferrer, PhD; Stephen B Manuck, PhD; Nicole M Abaya, BS; Keely A Muscatell, PhD

Background

Support-giving has emerged as a health-relevant social behavior, such that giving more support is associated with better physical health. However, biological mechanisms by which support-giving and health are linked remain unclear. Whether support-giving uniquely relates to health relative to other psychosocial factors is also an open research question.

Purpose

Two studies test the hypothesis that support-giving is uniquely (over-and-above other psychosocial factors) related to lower systemic inflammation, a biological correlate of health.

Methods

Cross-sectional associations of support-giving with markers of systemic inflammation (i.e., interleukin-6 [IL-6], C-reactive protein [CRP]) were examined in two independent samples of midlife adults (Study 1, n = 746; Study 2, n = 350).

Results

Consistent with hypotheses, giving to more social targets (to family and friends, and also volunteering for various causes), but not receiving support from similar targets, was associated with lower IL-6. In conceptual replication and extension with a different measure of support-giving, higher frequency of support-giving behavior was associated with lower IL-6, even after adjusting for social network size and individual differences in social desirability. There were no associations between support-giving and CRP in either sample.

Conclusions

Future research needs to establish causality and directly test mechanistic pathways, but together, findings reaffirm the health-relevance of support-giving behavior and shed light on a promising biological mechanism by which such effects may occur.

Translational Behavioral Medicine: Practice, Policy, Research (TBM)

 

Equity and Behavioral Digital Health Interventions: Strategies to Improve Benefit and Reach

Sarah J Miller, PsyD; Jamilia R Sly, PhD; Kassandra I Alcaraz, PhD, MPH; Kimlin Ashing, PhD; Shannon M Christy, PhD; Brian Gonzalez, PhD; Qian Lu, MD, PhD, FSBM; Robert L Newton, Jr., PhD, FSBM; Michelle Redmond, PhD, MS; Megan Shen, PhD; Kamilah Thomas-Purcell, MPH;  Jean Yi, PhD; Tiffany Veinot, PhD, MLS; Cathy D Meade, PhD RN FAAN, FSBM

Background

Behavioral digital health interventions (e.g., mobile apps, websites, wearables) have been applied widely to improve health outcomes. However, many groups (e.g., people with low income levels, people who are geographically isolated, older adults) may face obstacles to technology access and use. In addition, research has found that biases and stereotypes can be embedded within digital health interventions. As such, behavioral digital health interventions that intend to improve overall population health may unintentionally widen health-related inequities.

Purpose

This commentary offers guidance and strategies to mitigate these risks when using technology as a means for delivering a behavioral health intervention.

Methods
A collaborative working group from Society of Behavioral Medicine’s Health Equity Special Interest Group developed a framework to center equity in the development, testing and dissemination of behavioral digital health interventions.

Results

We introduce Partner, Identify, Demonstrate, Access, Report (PIDAR), a 5-point framework to avoid the creation, perpetuation, and/or widening of health inequities in behavioral digital health work.

Conclusions

It is critically important to prioritize equity when conducting digital health research. The PIDAR framework can serve as a guide for behavioral scientists, clinicians and developers.

 

Constituent-Driven Health Policy Informed by Policy Advocacy Literature

Roger Figueroa, PhD, MPH, MSc; Rahul Verma

In this position paper, a theoretical framework is proposed to formulate engaged, evidence-based health policy based on the priorities of constituents. An initial literature review was conducted to gain insight on the gaps in knowledge. Three emergent domains were identified: advocacy, research, and policymaking. The inputs and intermediates to the final output (equitable, evidence-based health policy outcomes) were identified and further elaborated upon in each corresponding section of the paper. Additionally, the main objective of each domain based on the literature review and the implications of each step were noted. Researchers have been identified as crucial to the education of policymakers to ultimately produce informed, evidence-based policy. Community advocates and researchers must attempt to advocate for policy issues as the ultimate role of policymakers in this process necessitates effective engagement to promote political will in the policymaking process. To do so, community advocates must scale-up from the individual to coalitions with strong leadership. In conjunction with a policy champion, these efforts by constituents (community advocates and researchers) would result in the most effective modes of policy development and implementation. The Constituent-driven Policy Advocacy Model (CPAM) introduced in this paper creates the potential for a new precedent in policymaking, in which advocacy, community engagement, evidence synthesis and evaluation, as well as science communication are common practices, leading to more sensitive, targeted, and equitable policy outcomes.