Research Projects
The Fordham University Sleep Study (FUSS) - (2021 - present)
Funded by a Fordham Faculty Research Grant (PI: Yip), FUSS explores how sleep patterns change and develop during and after the college transition. This study begins data collection during freshman orientation to capture the development of sleep patterns as soon as students arrive at campus. Teasing apart sociodemographic and environmental impacts of sleep behavior, this study explores systematic differences by ethnicity/race, age, gender, 1st-generation college students, SES, and commuters versus on-campus residents. As part of this study, participants wear a wrist actigraph for 2 weeks and complete daily reports of activities, feelings and behaviors. In addition, participants also provide hair and dried blood spot samples to measure physiological stress and biological functioning. FUSS is designed to investigate how sleep behaviors and patterns in college impact the downstream development of health disparities.
Grant number: NIH R01MD015715
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If you are interested in participating or are a current participant in FUSS, please visit our FUSS website!
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Follow FUSS on Social Media!
Instagram: fussatfordham
Twitter: FUSSatFordham
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Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study
The project draws from the on-going, national, longitudinal study of Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD), the largest national study of its kind that follows 11,875 children (9-10 years old) through adolescence. The project (PI: Yijie Wang) examines three research aims. First, the study investigates temporal, prospective, and reciprocal linkages between discrimination and substance use, from late childhood to early adolescence, disentangling whether discrimination is a contributing or a resulting factor of substance use initiation and continuation. Sources of discrimination include: ethnicity/race, immigration status, sexual orientation, and body shape. Second, the study investigates the mediating and moderating role of sleep in discrimination-substance use associations. Finally, building upon meta-analyses showing that the influence of discrimination on mental health is stronger in childhood and early to middle adolescence than other developmental periods, the study investigates development differences in temporal associations (e.g., discrimination-substance use, sleep as a mediator and moderator) from late childhood to middle adolescence.
Grant number: NIH R01MD015763
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Seguimos Avanzando - Latino Youth Coping With Discrimination
This project (PI: Margarita Alegria) seeks to improve the overall health and well-being of racial/ethnic minority youths and their families by reducing the effects of racism and discrimination. The central focus of this study is how emotion regulation and cognitive strategies, coping resources, and family/neighborhood influences explain or help condition these associations. The study uses community-based collaboration to recruit the targeted sample of Mexican-origin adolescents, mothers, and fathers will contribute to the literature, where fathers (particularly Latino fathers) have been largely missing. Through the innovative integration of both longitudinal (macro-time) and daily diary (micro-time) research design features, important questions about cause and effect and how mediating and moderating processes unfold over time will be addressed. The proposed analyses also reflect the multi-layered sociocultural niches occupied by Latino adolescents by employing individual-level methods as well as dyadic (adolescent-mother; adolescent-father) and triadic (adolescent-mother-father) analyses to test key study hypotheses.
Grant number: NIH R01MD014737
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Visit Seguimos Avanzando to learn more!
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Building Our Bonds Authentically (BOBA) Study (PIs: Cindy Liu, Tiffany Yip)
The impact of discrimination to mental health is particularly salient to AA parents and children given the current social and political context. During the pandemic, covert and overt Anti-Asian discrimination such as referencing COVID-19 as “China virus,” “Kung Flu” and physical assaults have skyrocketed by 145% in 2020, and spiked by 164% in the first quarter of 2021 in comparison to the same time frame of 2020. From March 19, 2020 to March 31, 2021, a national bias reporting clearinghouse “Stop AAPI Hate'' received 6,603 reports of anti-Asian incidents with 83.3% of those incidents reflecting virulent animosity, and of reported incidents, 43.7% targeted Chinese individuals. It is unknown the extent to which these experiences have an effect on mental health in AA families, how youth approach racial bias discrimination, and how such issues are discussed among AA parents and children. This project aims to assess how racial discrimination experiences are associated with mental health and biological measures of stress among Chinese American adolescents and their parents. We will also examine the moderating role of internalized model minority, ethnic identity, and coping. The study also considers family-level, bidirectional, and intergenerational effects of discrimination stress and mental health.
Grant number: NIMH 1R01 MH129360-01
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Visit The BOBA Project to learn more!
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The Adolescent Sleep Project (Ad Sleep)
Funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (PI:Yip), The Ad Sleep Project is a 4-year longitudinal investigation of how stress impacts health and academic outcomes and development through sleep processes. As part of this project, a diverse sample of nearly 400 adolescents from several New York City public high schools wore wrist actigraphs to collect data on sleep behaviors and patterns for 2 weeks, once every year for 4 years. In addition, participants completed biannual surveys, and daily diaries to provide information on their demographics and daily stress, activities and feelings. The Ad Sleep Project explores how sleep serves as a mediating pathway between stress and health and academic outcomes.
Grant number: R21MD011388
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College Stress Study
Funded by an Interdisciplinary and a Faculty Research Grants (PI: Yip & Smith), this project explores the physiological embodiment of stress. This study includes a sample of over 700 diverse college students who completed a preliminary demographic survey, and a subsample of over 200 students who completed an experimental manipulation of stress in the research lab. As part of the experimental study, participants were exposed to vignettes depicting varying degrees of stress. A psychological monitor (Biopac), assess real-time heart-rate and skin response reactions to the vignettes. In addition, participants provide salivary and hair cortisol samples. The College Stress Study explores how real-time responses to stress vary by sociodemographic and physiological variables, with an aim of unpacking health and academic disparities.
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The Effects of Stress and Sleep Disturbance on the Wellbeing and Academic Outcomes of Minority Youth
Dr. Yip began work in 2015 on a four year study funded by the National Science Foundation which follows African American and Hispanic students from the 9th to the 12th grade. The study aims to understand the social and sleep-related pathways associated with minority adolescents’ experiences of discrimination, health and academic outcomes. The study design is similar to the YES project. Participants answer three longer surveys each year and participate in a two week daily diary mini-study. During this two week period they wear Motionlogger actigraph watches to monitor their sleep and physical activity and complete nightly surveys about their activities and mood.
Grant number: BCS-1354134
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Youth Experiences Study (YES) (PIs: Tiffany Yip, Nicole Shelton)
From 2008-2010, Dr. Yip and colleagues oversaw a longitudinal study of 400 New York adolescents. The study, funded by the National Institute of Health, recruited participants of diverse ethnic backgrounds from several high schools in the area. Students completed three longer surveys each year, as well as a one week mini-study. During that week, participants answered a nightly survey of their activities and mood that day. They were also beeped at random on phones distributed by the researchers five times during the day and prompted to answer questions about their feelings at that moment. The daily diary design of the YES project, allowed for investigation of how ethnic identity development, school context, and other factors affected everyday developmental outcomes including mood and academic engagement.
Grant number: R01HD055436