Prospective, Longitudinal Associations Between Child Maltreatment, Immune Function, and Cardiovascular Disease Risk

This grant supports the prospective investigation of associations between exposure to child maltreatment and immune function outcomes and will be the first study to do so in a sample of recently maltreated youth and matched comparison youth without a history of child maltreatment. Additionally, the resulting immune function outcomes are being linked to early indicators of CVD risk among these youth, both other measures of cardiometabolic risk in the cohort and youth’s administrative records, specifically Medicaid claims data.

This work is supported by a grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (R01 HL158577; PI: Schreier).

Early Psychosocial Intervention and Child and Parent Cardiovascular Disease Risk

This project focuses on the assessment of cardiovascular disease risk among children and parents part of an ongoing intervention trial evaluating the impact of a perinatal coparenting intervention (Family Foundations; PI: Mark Feinberg). This will allow us to investigate psychosocial pathways within the family that influence cardiovascular disease risk as well as potential intervention effects of Family Foundations on parent and child cardiovascular disease risk.

This project is supported through a grant by the Social Science Research Institute at The Pennsylvania State University (PI: Schreier) and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (R01 HL137809; PI: Schreier; 2018-2022).

Biological Embedding of Early Life Experiences – the Child Health Study

Dr. Schreier was MPI of Phase 1 of the Child Health Study at Penn State’s Center for Healthy Children which focuses on understanding how children’s and adolescents’ life experiences shape not only their overall development but specifically key biological outcomes that may have repercussions for lifelong health and well-being.

This project was supported through a grant by The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P50 HD089922; PI: Noll, Co-I: Schreier; 2017-2022).

Physiological Well-Being and the Transition to College

This project is led by Dr. Schreier’s doctoral student, Emily Jones. Although college attendance can positively affect physiological well-being and reduce the risk for chronic diseases in later adulthood, these benefits may not be afforded to at-risk students, at least in the short term. This project aims to elucidate whether the metabolic and immunological profiles of first-generation college students differ from those of their continuing-generation peers over the course of the first year of college.

This project is supported through a predoctoral fellowship at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (F31 HL149179; PI: Jones, Sponsor: Schreier; 2019-2021).