Professor Robins Receives NIH Award to Study Impact of COVID-19 on Mexican-origin Adults in California

Professor Richard Robins received a $384,408 Administrative Supplement from NIH (National Institute on Aging) for a project titled "Psychosocial Stress and Adaptation to the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Latinx Population". In collaboration with Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Angelina Sutin (Florida State University) and Co-investigator Camelia Hostinar (UC Davis Psychology Department), Professor Robins will examine stress exposure and factors that promote successful adaptation among middle-aged adults in the California Families Project, a long-standing longitudinal study of  Mexican-origin adults who have been followed for over 14 years across middle adulthood (900 participants are expected for this proposed supplement). The project will identify cognitive, socioeconomic, personality, and social/relational predictors of cumulative stress burden related to COVID-19 and test whether COVID-19-related stress is associated with declines in cognitive function and physical health. Furthermore, the project will identify pre-pandemic cognitive, socioeconomic, personality, and social/relational predictors of compliance with COVID-19 prophylactic measures and willingness to be vaccinated and test the extent to which compliance with prophylactic measures predicts COVID-19 infection and other physical health outcomes. The proposed research will facilitate the development of a program of research on stress and resilience in the Hispanic/Latino population, which has been historically understudied but has been disproportionately affected by the financial, health, and psychosocial stressors related to COVID-19.