Shakira Franco Suglia, Ph.D.
Harvard University School of Public Health
Junior Investigator, Vulnerable Populations
Project Title: Impact of Violence Exposure on Children's Health
"The program description appealed to me because the research interests of the foundation were similar to mine yet I still felt that within the New Connections research questions I could have enough liberty to development my own specific research question. The New Connections program is also very unique in that it combines research, mentoring and training as well as the opportunity to network with researchers that share similar interests."
Project Description
Suglia's research is conceptualized within the stress-health paradigm and focuses on a chronic life stressor prevalent in low-income, minority populations in the U.S. - violence. Her research takes advantage of data already collected in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study.
She is exploring the role of violence exposure (community, domestic and maltreatment) in children's development of asthma. Furthermore, she is exploring how other social factors (i.e., housing characteristics and economic factors) can modify the effects of violence exposure on the development of asthma.
Biography
Shakira Franco Suglia, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow in the department of environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her research is multidisciplinary as she examines the effects of social and environmental factors on children's health, both psychological and physical.
She is exploring the relationship of the stress hormone, cortisol, and violence exposure and how social and environmental factors can modify this association. Suglia is interested in the development and application of latent variable analyses that will facilitate the analyses of latent constructs, such as stress, which are not directly measured but ascertained with the use of multi-item questionnaires. In addition, she is exploring the role of traffic-related pollutants in relation to children's cognitive and behavioral development.
