Matthew Morgan

• Master of Social Work
• PhD Student at Virginia Commonwealth University

Research in Caucasian populations has begun to examine the broad associations between physical and mental health in dementia caregivers. However, the examination of this relationship in Latin America is largely absent from the literature despite the fact that the region will see a major increase in dementia cases over the next 20 years. The current...

The purposes of this study were (a) to examine themes in heterosexuals’ responses when responding to LGBT prejudice, and (b) to explore the potential influence of educational information about LGBT topics on these themes of responses. Heterosexual undergraduate students (N = 225) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: participants receive...

Black Americans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder have less access to mental healthcare compared to White Americans. Many factors contribute to this inequity, including broader disparities within the healthcare system driven by systemic racism, and an underutilization of mental health services by Black Americans due to provider bias and stigma aro...

Quality of life (QOL) for older adults in Puerto Rico was significantly impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet there has been little attention to this topic. This study examines the association between COVID-19-related attitudes and QOL and the mediating role of the psychological sense of community (PSOC) in this context. Data are from a COVID-...

Few studies have examined the mental health of older adults in low resource settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. We used a negative binomial regression with a log linear link function to model the effects of demographic, health, and social factors and common pandemic-related experiences on loneliness in older adults in Puerto Rico. Data are from...

Loneliness is a critical public health problem, yet it is under-examined among older adults in Puerto Rico. We explored sociodemographic and health-related risks for loneliness using data from a Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices COVID-19 study of Older Adults in Puerto Rico study. We conducted telephone and face-to-face interviews (January - Decem...

Neighborhoods have a significant impact on depressive symptoms in older adults. In response to the increasing depression of older adults in Korea, this study aims to identify the relationship between perceived and objective neighborhood characteristics in depressive symptoms and find differences between rural and urban areas. We used a National sur...

What life lessons emerge from a group of older Puerto Ricans concerning their experiences with COVID-19. We will review study participants’ reports of how they spent their time during the pandemic, what they found most difficult to cope with, and life lessons they learned as a result. We will use Erickson’s life course theory of psychosocial develo...

Loneliness is a well-established risk factor for poor mental health. During COVID-19, loneliness and mental health have been exacerbated by widespread disease-related mortality, suggesting that loss of a loved one may influence this relationship. Using data from 187 older adults in Puerto Rico, we assessed the association between loneliness and men...