UBC Psychobiological Determinants of Health Laboratory

Volunteers

Thank you for your interest in volunteering with our lab. We typically have openings for new volunteers once or twice per year, and are always happy to accept applications. To apply, please email us with your current resume and cover letter. If you are a UBC student, please also include your course schedule and a list of relevant course work you've completed.

Please email documents as an attachment to healthpsych@psych.ubc.ca with "Volunteer Application" as the Subject line. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email us at healthpsych@psych.ubc.ca. Thank you!

Graduate Students

We're always on the lookout for excellent graduate students who want research training at the interface of psychology and medicine. Through research activities in the lab and courses in the Health Psychology doctoral program, our students can develop expertise in psychological, biological, and epidemiologic approaches. They also learn to develop research questions, perform advanced statistics, write grant proposals, and publish scientific manuscripts. Below is partial listing of papers that our students published in the past few years.

If you're interested in joining our lab as a graduate student, see the Health Psychology program's website for application information. Note that our program welcomes students from a variety of academic disciplines, ranging from the social to the biological sciences. We don't see it as a problem if students haven't done much training in biology. As long as they're interested and committed to learning, our lab can provide the training they need to do high-quality research.

(Underlined names are students)

Schreier, H. M. C., Miller, G. E., & Chen, E. (2011). Clinical potentials for measuring stress in youth with asthma.
Immunology and Allergy Clinics of North America, 31, 41-54.

Walker, H. & Chen, E. (2010). The impact of family asthma management on biology: A longitudinal investigation of youth with asthma. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 33(4), 326-334 .

Hanson, M.D. & Chen, E. (in press). Daily Stress, Cortisol, and Sleep: The Moderating Role of Childhood Psychosocial Environments. Health Psychology

Dunn, E.W., Ashton-James, C.E., Hanson, M.D., & Aknin, L.B. (in press). On the Costs of Self-interested Economic Behavior: How Does Stinginess Get Under the Skin? Journal of Health Psychology.

Schreier, H. M. C. & Chen, E. (2010). Longitudinal relationships between family routines and biological profiles among youth with asthma. Health Psychology, 29, 82-90.

Chen, E., Strunk, R. C., Bacharier, L. B., Chan, M., & Miller, G. E. (2010). Socioeconomic status associated with exhaled nitric oxide responses to acute stress in children with asthma. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 24, 444-450.

Marin, T. J., Chen, E., Munch, J. A., & Miller, G. E. (2009). Double-exposure to acute stress and chronic family stress is associated with immune changes in children with asthma. Psychosomatic Medicine, 71, 378-384.

Miller, G.E., Chen, E. Fok, A., Walker, H., Lim, A., Nicholls, E.P., Cole, S.W., & Kobor, M.S. (2009). Low early-life social class leaves a biological residue manifested by decreased glucocorticoid and increased proinflammatory signaling. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106, 14716-14721.

Chen, E. & Schreier, H. M. C. (2009). Socioeconomic status and asthma in children. In R. Pawankar, S. Holgate, & L. J. Rosenwasser (Eds.), Allergy Frontiers: From Epigenetics to Future Perspectives (p. 427-440). Tokyo, Japan: Springer.

Chen, E., Miller, G.E., Walker, H., Arevalo, J.M., Sung, C.Y., & Cole, S.W. (2009). Genome-wide transcriptional profiling linked to social class in asthma. Thorax , 64, 38-43.

Walker, H., Chim, L., & Chen, E. (2009). The role of asthma management beliefs and behaviors in childhood asthma immune and clinical outcomes. Journal of Pediatric Psychology , 34 , 379-388 .

Hanson, M.D., & Chen, E. (2008). The temporal relationships between sleep, cortisol, and lung functioning in youth with asthma. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 33, 312-316.

Schreier, H.M.C., & Chen, E. (2008). Prospective associations between coping and health among youth with asthma. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 76, 790-798.

Miller, G. E., Chen, E., Sze, J., Marin, T., Arevalo, J. M. G., Doll, R., Ma, R., & Cole, S. W. (2008). A functional genomic fingerprint of chronic stress in humans: Blunted glucocorticoid and increased NF-ĸ B signaling. Biological Psychiatry, 64, 266-272.

Stanford, E. A., Chambers, C. T., Biesanz, J. C., & Chen, E. (2008). The frequency, trajectories and predictors of adolescent recurrent pain: A population-based approach. Pain, 138, 11-21.

Chen, E., Schreier, H. M. C., Strunk, R. C., & Brauer, M. (2008). Chronic traffic-related air pollution and stress interact to predict biological and clinical outcomes in asthma. Environmental Health Perspectives, 116, 970-975.

Chen, E., & Schreier, H. M. C. (2008). Does the social environment contribute to asthma? Immunology and Allergy Clinics of North America, 28, 649-664.

Hanson, M.D., & Chen, E. (2007). Socioeconomic status and health behaviors in adolescence: A review of the literature. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 30, 263-285.

Hanson, M.D., & Chen, E. (2007). Socioeconomic status and substance use behaviors in adolescents: The role of family resources versus family social status. Journal of Health Psychology, 12, 32-35.

Hanson, M.D., & Chen, E. (2007). Socioeconomic status, race, and body mass index: The mediating role of physical activity and sedentary behaviors during adolescence. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 3, 250-259.

Hanson, M.D., & Chen, E. (2007). Socioeconomic status, race, and body mass index: The mediating role of physical activity and sedentary behaviors during adolescence. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 32, 250-259.

Hanson, M.D., & Chen, E. (2007). Socioeconomic status and substance use behaviors in adolescents: The role of family resources versus family social status. Journal of Health Psychology, 12, 32-55.

Marin, T.J., Martin, T.M., Blackwell, E., Stetler, C., & Miller, G.E. (2007.) Differentiating the impact of episodic and chronic stressors on HPA axis regulation in young women. Health Psychology, 26, 447-455.

Miller, G.E., Chen, E., & Zhou, E. (2007). If it goes up, must it come down? Chronic stress and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocorticol axis in humans. Psychological Bulletin, 133, 25-45.

Chen, E., Hanson, M. D., Paterson, L. Q., Griffin, M. J., Walker, H. A., & Miller, G.E. (2006). Socioeconomic status and inflammatory processes in childhood asthma: The role of psychological stress. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 117 , 1014-1020.

Post-docs

We're always on the lookout for post-docs as well. Each year we accept 1-2 fellows who are seeking advanced research training in health psychology. They are usually supported by grants they have co-written with Dr. Chen or Dr. Miller. These grants are available from both provincial (Michael Smith Foundation) and federal (Canadian Institutes of Health Research) agencies and support both Canadian and international trainees.