Chris Dunkel-Schetter

Prof. Chris Dunkel Schetter is Professor of Psychology and the Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty Development at UCLA. She will be visiting the Family Working Group to discuss The Community Child Health Network (CCHN). The CCHN began in July 2003 to gain new insights into the reasons for the disparities in maternal health and child development. The study was a five-year, multi-site, prospective cohort study of the influences of stress and resilience on maternal allostatic load and birth outcomes with a cohort over 2,000 families that we recruited at delivery of the index child, with oversampling among African American and Latina women, as well as women with preterm birth. Periodic assessment of the mother, father/partner, and their relationship occurred via in-person visits at 1, 6, 12, and 24 months and per trimester during subsequent pregnancy; individual, family, community, and institutional stressors and resilience factors were measured and biomarkers were collected at 6, 12, and 24 months. Prof. Dunkel Schetter will provide a general overview of the CCHN project history, waves, and types of data, and share some of what psychologists and have done with the data. A Q&A and discussion will explore potential sociological questions. More information on the CCHN and Dunkel Schetter’s work is available at: https://cds.psych.ucla.edu/prjts/cchn.php