Rebecca A. Ferrer

Risk perceptions are instrumental in predicting how people will process and react to threats. While social contexts have long been associated with changes in risk perception, whether and which social contexts alter risk perceptions is not well understood. This paper explores one such social context––support-giving––which has previous links to affect, cognition, and behavior, including how threats are processed. Using a tripartite model in which risk perceptions are split between deliberative (logical), affective (emotional), and experiential (lived) assessments, we used two studies, a longitudinal-correlational (Study 1) and experimental (Study 2), to explore whether support-giving relates to and impacts risk perceptions. Findings from Study 1 revealed that support-giving toward a close other at Time 1 was associated with an increase in affective risk perceptions at Time 2. Study 2 clarified the direction of this association, finding that there was an increase in affective and experiential risk perceptions for those randomly assigned to a support-giving condition, as compared to the control. Deliberative risk perceptions did not differ between conditions. Given that affective risk perceptions strongly predict behavior, support-giving may be a promising new avenue by which to inspire preventative behavior.

Background: Research has established the effects of romantic relationships on individuals’ morbidity and mortality. However, the interplay between relationship functioning, affective processes, and health behaviors has been relatively understudied. During the COVID-19 pandemic, relational processes may influence novel health behaviors such as social distancing and masking. Objective: We describe the design, recruitment, and methods of the relationships, risk perceptions, and cancer-related behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic study. This study was developed to understand how relational and affective processes influence romantic partners’ engagement in cancer prevention behaviors as well as health behaviors introduced or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The relationships, risk perceptions, and cancer-related behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic study used online survey methods to recruit and enroll 2 cohorts of individuals involved in cohabiting romantic relationships, including 1 cohort of dyads (n=223) and 1 cohort of cancer survivors (n=443). Survey assessments were completed over 2 time points that were 5.57 (SD 3.14) weeks apart on average. Health behaviors assessed included COVID-19 vaccination and social distancing, physical activity, diet, sleep, alcohol use, and smoking behavior. We also examined relationship factors, psychological distress, and household chaos. Results: Data collection occurred between October 2021 and August 2022. During that time, a total of 926 participants were enrolled, of which about two-thirds were from the United Kingdom (n=622, 67.8%) and one-third were from the United States (n=296, 32.2%); about two-thirds were married (n=608, 66.2%) and one-third were members of unmarried couples (n=294, 32%). In cohorts 1 and 2, the mean age was about 34 and 50, respectively. Out of 478 participants in cohort 1, 19 (4%) identified as Hispanic or Latino/a, 79 (17%) as non-Hispanic Asian, 40 (9%) as non-Hispanic Black or African American, and 306 (64%) as non-Hispanic White; 62 (13%) participants identified their sexual orientation as bisexual or pansexual, 359 (75.1%) as heterosexual or straight, and 53 (11%) as gay or lesbian. In cohort 2, out of 440 participants, 13 (3%) identified as Hispanic or Latino/a, 8 (2%) as non-Hispanic Asian, 5 (1%) as non-Hispanic Black or African American, and 398 (90.5%) as non-Hispanic White; 41 (9%) participants identified their sexual orientation as bisexual or pansexual, 384 (87.3%) as heterosexual or straight, and 13 (3%) as gay or lesbian. The overall enrollment rate for individuals was 66.14% and the overall completion rate was 80.08%. Conclusions: We discuss best practices for collecting online survey data for studies examining relationships and health, challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, recruitment of underrepresented populations, and enrollment of dyads. Recommendations include conducting pilot studies, allowing for extra time in the data collection timeline for marginalized or underserved populations, surplus screening to account for expected attrition within dyads, as well as planning dyad-specific data quality checks. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/48516

Background: Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. It is critical to understand the associations among multilevel determinants of cancer prevention and control behaviors. This study examined associations of neighborhood factors with perceived risk of cancer and self-efficacy for reducing cancer risk. Methods: Cross-sectional analyses included 2324 U.S. adults from the Midlife in the U.S. Wave 3. Participants completed surveys of neighborhood environment (perceived neighborhood trust and safety, built environment conditions, social integration), perceived cancer risk and cancer prevention efficacy. Multivariate linear regressions examined associations of neighborhood context with risk perceptions and self-efficacy. Results: In the model that adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics, better perceived neighborhood trust and safety were associated with lower perceived cancer risk. In fully adjusted models for sociodemographic characteristics and contextual factors, higher perceptions of neighborhood trust and safety were associated with higher cancer prevention self-efficacy. Perceptions of better built neighborhood conditions and higher social integration were significantly associated with lower perceived cancer risk and higher perceived cancer prevention efficacy. Conclusions: Perceptions of neighborhood context may play a role in shaping psychosocial factors such as perceived cancer risk and self-efficacy, even after controlling for robust predictors of these perceptions.

Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia. The progression of AD throughout the brain follows a stereotypical pattern that can be described by the quantification of histopathological changes in several brain regions. As part of The Seattle Alzheimer’s Disease Cell Atlas (SEA‐AD, https://sea-ad.org), we previously quantified pathological proteins in the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and used them to describe disease progression, vulnerable cell types, and the MTG molecular changes related to diseaseMethod: In this work, we expanded our results and undertook a comparative approach. We measured a battery of neuropathological proteins (staining NeuN, AT8, IBA1, GFAP, 6e10, pTDP43, and a‐Syn immunoreactivity, and analyzing them with machine learning) in the middle temporal gyrus, the middle frontal gyrus, and medial entorhinal cortex in 84 donors. In addition, we undertook a multimodal single‐cell analysis of such regions, profiling cells using single‐cell RNA‐seq, ATAC‐seq, Multiome, and spatial transcriptomic.Borrowing from our hierarchically resolved cell types in MTG, based on the BRAIN initiative cell type reference, we used machine learning algorithms to create multimodal cell type maps across regions. We used Bayesian statistics to identify differentially accessible regulatory elements, link them to the affected genes and the regulatory transcriptional machinery binding in such elements.Result: We identified regional vulnerable neuronal populations and a core set of transcriptionally similar cell types susceptible to disease across the cortex. We created a cortex‐wide disease progression map combining neuropathological data from our three profiled regions with latent Bayesian statistical algorithms. In each area, we developed an AD pseudo‐progression timescale that describes the burden of disease in the area and, next, combined all areas to create a cortex‐wide holistic pseudo‐progression. We used the mapped cell types and our developed scale to synchronize changes occurring in each patient, describing abundances, gene expression, and chromatin accessibility modifications.Conclusion: The progression scale developed in this study serves as a reference to align changes across brain regions and, in the future, to reconcile differences across cohorts.

Behavior change can be challenging to facilitate and achieve. Behavior change frameworks largely focus on social cognitive determinants, omitting affective determinants or including them in a superficial way. However, evidence points to the role of affect in decision-making and behavior, particularly when the behavior at focus for change is affectively pleasant or when the behavior to be facilitated is affectively unpleasant. This paper identifies challenges and opportunities to further affective science by using behavior change as a context and, relatedly, to further the science of behavior change by leveraging theoretical and methodological innovations in affective science.

BACKGROUND Research has established the effects of romantic relationships on individuals’ morbidity and mortality. However, the interplay between relationship functioning, affective processes, and health behaviors has been relatively understudied. During the COVID-19 pandemic, relational processes may influence novel health behaviors such as social distancing and masking. OBJECTIVE We describe the design, recruitment, and methods of the relationships, risk perceptions, and cancer-related behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic study. This study was developed to understand how relational and affective processes influence romantic partners’ engagement in cancer prevention behaviors as well as health behaviors introduced or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS The relationships, risk perceptions, and cancer-related behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic study used online survey methods to recruit and enroll 2 cohorts of individuals involved in cohabiting romantic relationships, including 1 cohort of dyads (n=223) and 1 cohort of cancer survivors (n=443). Survey assessments were completed over 2 time points that were 5.57 (SD 3.14) weeks apart on average. Health behaviors assessed included COVID-19 vaccination and social distancing, physical activity, diet, sleep, alcohol use, and smoking behavior. We also examined relationship factors, psychological distress, and household chaos. RESULTS Data collection occurred between October 2021 and August 2022. During that time, a total of 926 participants were enrolled, of which about two-thirds were from the United Kingdom (n=622, 67.8%) and one-third were from the United States (n=296, 32.2%); about two-thirds were married (n=608, 66.2%) and one-third were members of unmarried couples (n=294, 32%). In cohorts 1 and 2, the mean age was about 34 and 50, respectively. Out of 478 participants in cohort 1, 19 (4%) identified as Hispanic or Latino/a, 79 (17%) as non-Hispanic Asian, 40 (9%) as non-Hispanic Black or African American, and 306 (64%) as non-Hispanic White; 62 (13%) participants identified their sexual orientation as bisexual or pansexual, 359 (75.1%) as heterosexual or straight, and 53 (11%) as gay or lesbian. In cohort 2, out of 440 participants, 13 (3%) identified as Hispanic or Latino/a, 8 (2%) as non-Hispanic Asian, 5 (1%) as non-Hispanic Black or African American, and 398 (90.5%) as non-Hispanic White; 41 (9%) participants identified their sexual orientation as bisexual or pansexual, 384 (87.3%) as heterosexual or straight, and 13 (3%) as gay or lesbian. The overall enrollment rate for individuals was 66.14% and the overall completion rate was 80.08%. CONCLUSIONS We discuss best practices for collecting online survey data for studies examining relationships and health, challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, recruitment of underrepresented populations, and enrollment of dyads. Recommendations include conducting pilot studies, allowing for extra time in the data collection timeline for marginalized or underserved populations, surplus screening to account for expected attrition within dyads, as well as planning dyad-specific data quality checks. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT DERR1-10.2196/48516

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.

Background: Future-oriented emotions are associated with consequential health decision-making, including genomic testing decisions. However, little is known about the relative role of various future-oriented emotions in such decisions. Moreover, most research on predictors of decision making regarding genomic testing is conducted with white participants. Purpose: This study examined the role of future-oriented emotions in decisions to receive genomic testing results in U.S. individuals of African descent. Methods: We analyzed cross-sectional survey data from a genomic sequencing cohort (N = 408). All participants identified as African, African-American, or Afro-Caribbean (Mage = 56.3, 74.7% female). Participants completed measures assessing anticipatory affect (worry about genetic testing results), anticipated distress (feeling devastated if genetic testing showed an increased risk for fatal disease), and anticipated regret (regretting a decision not to learn results). Outcomes were intentions for learning actionable, nonactionable, and carrier results. Results: Anticipated regret was robustly positively associated with intentions to receive actionable (b = 0.28, p < .001), nonactionable (b = 0.39, p < .001), and carrier (b = 0.30, p < .001) results. Anticipated distress was negatively associated with intentions to receive nonactionable results only (b = −0.16, p < .01). Anticipatory negative affect (worry) was not associated with intentions. At higher levels of anticipated regret, anticipated distress was less strongly associated with intentions to receive nonactionable results (b = 0.14, p = .02). Conclusions: Our results highlight the role of future-oriented emotions in genomic testing among participants who are typically underrepresented in genomic testing studies and behavioral medicine broadly. Future work should examine whether interventions targeting future-oriented emotions such as anticipated regret may have clinically meaningful effects in genetic counseling in similar cohorts.