Ilona S Yim

University of California, Irvine | UCI ·  Department of Psychology and Social Behavior

Introduction: The complex biopsychosocial pathways linking maternal mental health with preterm birth (PTB) are not well understood. This study aimed to explore allostatic load (AL) as a mediator and perceived chronic stress as a moderator in the pathway linking maternal mental health and PTB. Methods: A cohort study of pregnant women (n = 1,567)...

Weight bias is a pervasive social issue and is closely related to eating disorders, particularly among young adult females. However, there is a lack of research examining the influence of individual-level cultural factors on this relationship. This study investigated the moderating effect of self-construal (i.e., the way individuals perceive the se...

Purpose Global health researchers have a responsibility to conduct ethical research in a manner that is culturally respectful and safe. The purpose of this work is to describe our experiences with recruitment and retention in Pakistan, a low-middle-income country. Description We draw on two studies with a combined sample of 2161 low-risk pregnant...

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on university faculty, unduly those from underrepresented groups, causing many faculty to disengage. Writing communities represent a promising tool to (re-)engage faculty and build an inclusive climate. As part of U See I Write, a faculty development initiative at the University of California, Irvine, we conve...

Psychological and physical factors are robustly associated with perceived social support. Drawing from the literature on attachment style in adults and psychophysiology, we examined the possibility that the interaction of attachment insecurity and resting heart rate variability (HRV) was associated with perceived social support in a diverse sample...

Aim: Globally, one in seven infants is born with low birth weight and 3%-7% of infants are born with high birth weight, with the greatest burden noted in low- and middle-income countries. This study investigated the association between maternal prenatal glucose regulation and birth weight and the moderating effect of fetal sex among Pakistani wome...

Prenatal depression is prevalent and adversely impacts maternal and infant health. This study addresses a critical literature gap and investigates the association between maternal diet quality and prenatal depressive symptoms, as well as the moderating effect of economic well-being on this link. A cross-sectional design was used, including 43 healt...

Background The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have been far-reaching, disproportionately impacting vulnerable populations. Of particular concern is the impact on individuals experiencing domestic violence (DV), an urgent public health issue. There have been numerous reports of pandemic-related surges in DV, and it has been speculated that pr...

Background We determined whether dimensions of psychosocial distress during pregnancy individually and collectively predicted preterm birth (PTB) in Pakistani women as it may be misleading to extrapolate results from literature predominantly conducted in high-income countries. Methods This cohort study included 1603 women recruited from four Aga K...

Objective: Acculturative stress, often experienced by members of minority groups, is related to problematic eating behaviors. What remains poorly understood is the function of perceived social support in this link. This study evaluated the moderating role of perceived support from family, the significant other, and friends in the association betwe...

Objective Allostatic load refers to cumulative neuroendocrine burden and has been postulated to mediate and moderate physiological and psychological stress-related responses. This may have important implications for the risk of preterm birth. This systematic review examines the evidence on the association between prenatal allostatic load and preter...

Background Benefits of green spaces on stress reduction have been shown in previous studies. Most existing studies to date have focused on the general population. However, there is a lack of understanding of physiological mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of green space among special populations, such as pregnant women. Objectives To ex...

Background The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and the Pregnancy-Related Anxiety Scale (PRAQ) are frequently used perinatal mental health scales. Objective: To identify the factor structure of the Urdu language versions of EPDS and PRAQ in 280 Pakistani pregnant women. Method The tools were administered at 12-19 weeks’ and 22-29 weeks’...

Acculturative stress is associated with health behaviors that have downstream consequences for health outcomes. Eating disinhibition, a behavior characterized by eating emotionally and uncontrollably in the presence of disinhibiting stimuli, has been consistently associated with acculturative stress, but the underlying mechanism is not well-underst...

IntroductionTotal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are gaining prominence as a risk factor for preterm birth (PTB). The emerging literature examining this relationship reports inconsistent findings. The purpose of this systematic review was to summarize the available evidence exploring whether total ACEs predict PTB.MethodsA total of 386 studie...

Introduction Total adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are gaining prominence as a risk factor for preterm birth (PTB). The emerging literature examining this relationship reports inconsistent findings. The purpose of this systematic review was to summarize the available evidence exploring whether total ACEs predict PTB. Methods A total of 386 stu...

Background Screening for changes in pregnancy-related anxiety and depressive symptoms during pregnancy may further our understanding of the relationship between these two variables and preterm birth. Objectives To determine whether changes in pregnancy-related anxiety and depressive symptoms during pregnancy influence the risk of preterm birth amo...

Anxiety and depression commonly co-occur during pregnancy and may increase risk of poor birth outcomes including preterm birth and low birth weight. Our understanding of rates, patterns, and predictors of comorbid anxiety and depression is hindered given the dearth of literature, particularly in low- and middle-income (LMI) countries. The aim of th...

Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19), a contagious disease, is a global pandemic affecting the lives and health of individuals across borders, genders and races. Much of what is known about the effects of natural disasters and disease outbreaks on women's health in particular, is based on studies conducted in high-income countries. The evolving evidence...

Background Recent studies have reported inconsistent associations between maternal residential green space and preterm birth (PTB, born < 37 completed gestational weeks). In addition, windows of susceptibility during pregnancy have not been explored and potential interactions of green space with air pollution exposures during pregnancy are still un...

Background: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been associated with deleterious effects on mental health in pregnancy. Methods: The ACE International Questionnaire (ACE-IQ) was used to measure neglect, abuse, and household dysfunction. Longitudinal mixed effect modelling was used to test the effect of ACEs on pregnancy-related anxiety, de...

Objective: Simpatía, a term that captures the tendency to prefer and create social interactions characterized by warmth and emotional positivity while also avoiding conflict and/or overt negativity, is a cultural factor relevant to Latinos. The goal of this article was to develop a scale that measures this cultural value. Method: A self-report scal...

Background: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with prenatal mental health and negative pregnancy outcomes in high income countries, but whether the same association exists in Pakistan, a low- to middle-income (LMI) country, remains unclear. Methods: Secondary data analyses of a prospective longitudinal cohort study examining bi...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects one in three women and can have long-lasting psychological effects, with abuse survivors typically exhibiting elevated stress and depressive symptoms. However, women with greater personal empowerment resources (i.e., self-care, agency, self-efficacy) and who practice relaxation techniques generally exhibit lo...

Migration experiences are inherently stressful and may negatively affect the health of immigrants. Bicultural identity integration (BII), individuals' views of their multiple cultures as compatible and complementary, and their ability to easily integrate these cultures into their daily lives, has been linked with health outcomes. The main goal of t...

Perinatal depression negatively impacts mother-infant health and well-being. Previous work has linked cortisol reactivity to perinatal depressive symptoms, but moderating effects including social support and neuroticism, have not been studied. Forty-nine pregnant women (9–30 weeks’ gestational age; GA) provided saliva samples in response to the Tri...

We theorized that sociocultural contexts characterized by a form of interdependence that emphasizes mutual obligations, emotional positivity, and readily accessible social support from family may maximize the benefits of social support. This form of interdependence characterizes Latino culture and is captured by the cultural value familism. Eighty-...

Background: The perinatal period, which we here define as pregnancy and the first year postpartum, is a time in women's lives that involves significant physiological and psychosocial change and adjustment, including changes in their social status and decision-making power. Supporting women's empowerment at this particular time in their lives may b...

Numerous studies suggest that discrimination is associated with poor physical and mental health outcomes. Whereas the cardiovascular system has been extensively studied as a potential pathway linking discrimination with disease, the role of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis remains understudied. We conducted a systematic review of resea...

Exposure to chronic discrimination is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. The study of biobehavioral pathways linking discrimination with health outcomes has mostly focused on the cardiovascular system, with fewer studies addressing the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. In this study we tested associations between Latino eth...

The brain neuropeptide S (NPS) system has recently generated substantial interest and may be of major relevance for central stress regulation. The NPS receptor (NPSR1) is highly expressed in the limbic system, exogenous NPS exerts pronounced anxiolytic and fear-attenuating effects in rodents and extensive close crosstalk between the NPS system and...

Preterm birth (PTB) is a final common outcome resulting from many interrelated etiological pathways; of particular interest is antenatal psychosocial distress (i.e., stress, anxiety, and depression). In LMI countries, both exposure to severe life stressors and rate of PTB are on average greater when compared with high-income countries. In LMI count...

Despite considerable interest in understanding how stress influences memory accuracy and errors, particularly in children, methodological limitations have made it difficult to examine the effects of stress independent of the effects of the emotional valence of to-be-remembered information in developmental populations. In this study, we manipulated...

Stress-reduction interventions have been linked with enhanced well-being and health. This study examined affect and cortisol in 111 individuals randomly assigned to a single 35-minute guided relaxation or a stress management lecture control group. Positive affect increased more in the relaxation compared to the control group (F = 6.62, p = .01). Di...

Reliable laboratory protocols manipulating the intensity of biobehavioral arousal for children are uncommon, and those available have minimal converging evidence of their efficacy in manipulating arousal across multiple biological systems. This report presents two studies of the efficacy of the modified Trier Social Stress Test (TSST-M). In Study 1...

Postpartum depression (PPD) adversely affects the health and well being of many new mothers, their infants, and their families. A comprehensive understanding of biopsychosocial precursors to PPD is needed to solidify the current evidence base for best practices in translation. We conducted a systematic review of research published from 2000 through...

Neuroticism is the heritable and stable personality trait defined by the tendency to experience negative emotion, be easily stressed, and slow to soothe. Neuroticism poses a risk for poor social and health outcomes that has been identified as a major public health concern. To date, factors that attenuate neuroticism’s costs have not been identified...

Despite widespread recognition that the physiological systems underlying stress reactivity are well coordinated at a neurobiological level, surprisingly little empirical attention has been given to delineating precisely how the systems actually interact with one another when confronted with stress. We examined cross-system response proclivities in...

Perinatal depression impacts maternal and child health, and little is known about effective interventions. The effects of prenatal Hatha yoga on cortisol, affect and depressive symptoms were investigated in 51 women. Twice during pregnancy, yoga group participants reported on affect and provided a saliva sample before and after a 90-min prenatal Ha...

Few studies have investigated how stress affects eyewitness identification capabilities across development, and no studies have investigated whether retrieval context in conjunction with stress affects accuracy. In this study, one hundred fifty-nine 7- to 8- and 12- to 14-year-olds completed a high- or low-stress laboratory protocol during which th...

Research concerning the relations between stress and children's memory has been primarily correlational and focused on memory volume and accuracy. In the current study, we experimentally manipulated 7- and 8-year-olds' and 12- to 14-year-olds' experienced stress during a to-be-remembered event to examine the effects of stress on the content of thei...

Although a sizeable body of research has examined children's memory for stressful prior experiences, relatively few studies have experimentally manipulated stress during a to-be-remembered event to draw causal inferences about the effects of stress, especially across wide age ranges. We exposed children and adolescents to a more or a less arousing...

Emotionally arousing material is typically better remembered than neutral material. Since norepinephrine and cortisol interact to modulate emotional memory, sex-related influences on stress responses may be related to sex differences in emotional memory. Two groups of healthy women-one naturally cycling (NC women, N=42) and one using hormonal contr...

Maladjustment is the result of insufficient responses to demands that may occur throughout the life span and result in impaired functioning, distress, and/or poor health. The term maladaptive refers to processes (e.g., specific behaviors, patterns of thought or emotion that yield negative outcomes) whereas maladjustment is the result or outcome of...

Although the links between physiological arousal and adults' memory for emotional information are well understood, little is known about these links across development or when memory is examined for the actual event that induced arousal. In the current study, we examined the associations between physiological arousal and memory in children, adolesc...

The memory narrowing effect posits that stress enhances memory for central information at the expense of memory for peripheral details. This effect is well established in adults, but not in children, although studies have not directly compared children's and adults' memory for central versus peripheral details of an identical distressing experience...

The purpose of this study was to identify whether cortisol reactivity to a stressful laboratory event was related to children's memory of that event and to determine whether this relation was comparable to that observed in adults. Nine- to 12-year-olds and young adults completed an impromptu speech and math task during which repeated cortisol sampl...

There is accumulating evidence that individual differences in stress reactivity contribute to the risk for stress-related disease. However, the assessment of stress reactivity remains challenging, and there is a relative lack of questionnaires reliably assessing this construct. We here present the Perceived Stress Reactivity Scale (PSRS), a 23-item...

Perseverative cognition (i.e., rumination, worry) may amplify or maintain cortisol stress responses. The present study examined the effects of trait and state perseverative cognition (PC) on the cortisol awakening response (CAR). We hypothesized that trait PC and state (prior day's) PC would be associated with greater CARs. Undergraduates scoring h...

Narcissists' sensitivity to social evaluation should increase their physiological reactivity to evaluative stressors. However, very few studies have assessed the physiological correlates of narcissism. In this study, participants completed an evaluative laboratory stressor or a non-evaluative control task. Cortisol reactivity-a marker of the hypoth...

After delivery, many women experience symptoms of postpartum depression (PPD), and early identification of women at risk is therefore important. The opioid peptide beta-endorphin has been implicated in non-puerperal depression but its role in the development of PPD is unknown. Three hundred and seven women with a singleton, full-term (>37.0 weeks'...

This study investigated whether trait rumination predicts greater increases in salivary cortisol concentration and delayed recovery in response to a standardized, acute laboratory psychosocial stressor (modified Trier Social Stress Test). It also tested whether trait and state rumination predict reactivation of the cortisol response during later ve...

Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA), an enzyme produced by the salivary glands, increases in response to physical and psychosocial stressors in adults. Whether similar increases are evident among children, though, is less clear, and there is a lack of studies directly comparing children's and adults' sAA responses to an identical stressor. In this study,...

The effects of maternal stress during pregnancy may depend, in part, on the timing in gestation of the occurrence of stress. The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of stage of gestation on maternal psychophysiological responses to stress using a standardized laboratory paradigm and on the cortisol response to awakening (CAR). A long...

Many studies have investigated hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis responses to psychosocial stress in adults. In children, much less is known about HPA axis reactivity, and a sizable number of studies has not detected a significant cortisol response. Moreover, there is a lack of studies comparing adults’ and children's responses to identical...

This chapter focuses on the role children's physiological stress responses play in memory. It begins with a brief discussion of the rationale underlying the need to consider physiological stress responses when studying children's memory for emotional, primarily stressful, experiences. It then provides an overview of existing research that has inclu...

Postpartum depression (PPD) is common and has serious implications for the mother and her newborn infant. A possible link between placental corticotropin-releasing hormone (pCRH) and PPD incidence has been hypothesized, but empirical evidence is lacking. To determine whether accelerated increases in pCRH throughout pregnancy are associated with PPD...

Pregnancy is associated with considerable physiological adaptations, some of which long outlast the state of pregnancy. Although it is well documented that pregnancy produces alterations of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, the longer-term effects of pregnancy on this system have not been systematically examined in humans. Subjects in the pr...

Mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) mediate the action of aldosterone on sodium resorption in kidney tubular cells, but in brain they respond to the glucocorticoid cortisol in stress regulation and cognitive processes. The objective of the study was to investigate the role of the MR gene variant I180V in the neuroendocrine response to a psychosocial s...

We investigated salivary cortisol profiles in the first hour after awakening in morning versus evening chronotypes. Chronotypes were defined by Horne and Ostberg's Owl-and-Lark-Questionnaire. In a sample of 112 healthy, day-active young men, we identified 9 morning and 29 evening chronotypes. Saliva samples were collected 0, 30, 45, and 60min after...

Exploration of the degree to which perceived chronic stress is heritable is important as these self-reports have been linked to stress-related health outcomes. The aims of this study were to estimate whether perceived stress is a heritable condition and to assess whether heritability estimates vary between subjective stress reactivity and stress re...

Fetal programming of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis was proposed as one mechanism underlying the link between prenatal stress, adverse birth outcomes (particularly low birth weight) and an enhanced vulnerability for several diseases later in life. In recent studies, birth weight was significantly related to basal cortisol levels as w...

Although a rapid response habituation to repeated stress exposure is a key characteristic of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, several studies document a substantial inter-individual variability of such HPA response patterns. In order to further investigate the individual differences in the habituation of this important neuroendocrine...

The hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axix is vital for an organism's response to physical or psychosocial stimulation. Chronic dysregulation of HPA axis activity is related to several psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders. Cortisol, the end product of this endocrine system, affects a multitude of systems in the body, including the HPA axis it...

From the perspective of psychobiological stress research we present a brief overview of findings documenting a significant impact of genetic factors on the activity of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Quantitative genetic studies in twins as well as association studies, primarily on polymorphisms in the glucocorticoid receptor gene, a...

Individual differences in the response of the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis to stress are known to play an important role in health and disease risk. The origins, or determinants, of these individual differences are not well understood. To date, no study has examined the effects of context on the heritability of psychoendocrine stress respons...

Women's mental health during pregnancy has important implications not only for the well-being of the mother, but also for the development, health, and well-being of her unborn child. A growing body of empirical evidence from population-based studies suggests that two indicators of women's mental health during pregnancy--psychosocial stress and soci...

Women's mental health during pregnancy has important implications not only for the well-being of the mother, but also for the development, health, and well-being of her unborn child. A growing body of empirical evidence from population-based studies suggests that two indicators of women's mental health during pregnancy-psychosocial stress and socia...

Chronic dysregulation of hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis activity is related to several stress-related disorders. Evidence suggests that polymorphisms in the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) gene may have an impact on this neuroendocrine system. In the present investigation, 112 healthy males were studied to estimate the impact of three GR gene pol...

Psychobiological investigations on the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis depend on markers that adequately describe the activity of this system. There is evidence that the free cortisol response to awakening, proposed as a marker for the HPA axis, can be influenced by time of awakening. To further investigate this possible confounder, 24 sh...

Fetal programming of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis was proposed as one mechanism underlying the link between prenatal stress, adverse birth outcomes (particularly low birth weight) and an enhanced vulnerability for several diseases later in life. In recent studies, birth weight was significantly related to basal cortisol levels as w...