Neha john-henderson

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Montana State University

Introduction Psychological factors linked to political participation are largely understudied in American Indians. Prior work notes relatively low levels of participation compared to other racial and ethnic groups and suggests that identification with being American Indian is linked to overall levels of civic engagement in part through perceptions...

Cardiometabolic disease and mental health conditions are two major contributors to persistent inequities in health and life expectancy for American Indian adults. The atrocities associated with European colonization are linked to intergenerational psychological and emotional wounding (i.e., historical trauma) and high incidence of childhood trauma....

The strategies used to down regulate negative emotions or upregulate positive emotions are implicated in mood disorders, such as depression, and internalizing disorders, such as anxiety. Emotion regulation (ER) and mental health is largely understudied in American Indian (AI) populations. The limited extant data suggests that the rates of anxiety a...

American Indians and Alaska Natives suffer from disproportionately high rates of chronic mental and physical health conditions. These health inequities are linked to colonization and its downstream consequences. Most of the American Indian and Alaska Native health inequities research uses a deficit framework, failing to acknowledge the resilience o...

Background Although the effects of maternal behavior on the development of child emotion characteristics is relatively well-established, effects of infant characteristics on maternal emotion development is less well known. This gap in knowledge persists despite repeated calls for including child-to-mother effects in studies of emotion. We tested th...

The experience of childhood trauma is known to predict health-relevant outcomes across the lifespan. Previous reviews summarize existing knowledge of the implications of childhood trauma for health in young adults and adults more generally. The current theoretical review aims to integrate the existing literature on the relationship between childhoo...

Objective: Poor emotion regulation is associated with risk for cardiovascular disease. However, much of this research is conducted in primarily White samples, thus limiting our understanding of this relationship in other racial/ethnic groups. American Indians (AIs) are uniquely and disproportionately at risk for cardiovascular disease. As such, th...

Feeling connected with others and experiencing positive interpersonal interactions is associated with physical health and psychological functioning. Despite the importance of social experiences, experimental studies investigating how sleep impacts social connections and positive social experiences are limited. The current study sought to examine ho...

Life events, such as the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, elicit increases in psychological stress and symptoms of anxiety and depression. In turn, these outcomes have negative implications for mental health. Emotion regulation strategies and prior adversity may moderate the degree to which life events affect outcomes that are linked t...

Objectives To investigate whether childhood adversity exacerbates the relationship between sleep restriction and inflammation. Methods Participants (N = 46) were randomly assigned to an experimental sleep restriction group (n = 25) or a night of typical sleep (n = 21). Participants provided a dried blood spot sample the morning before and after th...

Purpose: To investigate the relationship between daily thoughts about historical loss and daily levels of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in American Indian (AI) adults residing on the Blackfeet reservation in Browning, Montana. Methods: The study was designed and conducted using a community-based participatory research framework a...

To examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food insecurity in the Blackfeet American Indian Tribal Community. American Indian adults residing on the Blackfeet reservation in Northwest Montana (n = 167) participated in a longitudinal survey across 4 months during the COVID-19 pandemic (August 24, 2020- November 30, 2020). Participants reporte...

Background Childhood adversity is linked to adverse health in adulthood. One posited mechanistic pathway is through physiological responses to acute stress. Childhood adversity has been previously related to both exaggerated and blunted physiological responses to acute stress, however, less is known about the psychological mechanisms which may cont...

This study addressed the efficacy of a 20-minute Chakra Connection to treat self-assessed stress in a group of university students. A randomized, control design was used to identify group mean differences for intervention and control groups. A convenience sample of university students was randomly assigned to an intervention (Healing Touch Chakra C...

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are robustly associated with later cardiovascular disease. Alterations in cardiovascular responses to stress may be an underlying mechanism. The present study examined whether ACEs predicted habituation of cardiovascular responses across two acute laboratory stress tasks, and whether this differed between men an...

Chronic insufficient sleep is a common occurrence around the world, and results in numerous physiological detriments and consequences, including cardiovascular complications. The purpose of the present study was to assess the relationship between habitual total sleep time (TST) measured objectively via at-home actigraphy and heart rate (HR) reactiv...

Background: Sleep is largely understudied in American Indians (AIs), even though sleep is implicated in the chronic diseases which disproportionately affect AI communities. Objective: To investigate relationships between daily self-reported loneliness and sleep as measured with actigraphy. Methods: In a sample of 98 Blackfeet adults living on...

We examined changes in psychological outcomes related to the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e. psychological stress, perceived control, and perceived ability to cope) and changes in sleep health in the American Indian Blackfeet community over 4 months (August 24, 2020- November 30, 2020). American Indian adults residing on the Blackfeet reservation (n=167) c...

Background: Feeling alive and invigorated, or vitality, is examined within the framework of a stress paradigm. The current study investigated whether endocrine and cardiovascular responses to acute psychological stress predict declines in vitality. Methods: A sample of 90 undergraduate students completed an in-lab stressor. We measured anxiety,...

Background Historical loss in American Indians (AIs) is believed to contribute to high incidence of mental health disorders, yet less is known about the associations between historical loss and physical health. Purpose To investigate whether frequency of thought about historical loss predicts risk factors for chronic physical health conditions in...

Introduction There is growing evidence that poor sleep may have a greater impact on the development of cardiovascular complications in women compared to men. However, most studies that have evaluated the impact of sex on sleep insufficiencies and blood pressure (BP) have not utilized ambulatory BP, and often rely more heavily on subjective sleep di...

Introduction Feeling socially connected with others is essential for promoting and maintaining psychological health. Emerging research suggests that insufficient sleep may result in deleterious social outcomes such as greater reactivity to stressful social situations. However, little is known regarding how sleep may impact motivation to feel connec...

Objective Investigate whether psychosocial risk in the childhood family environment moderates the relationship between childhood socioeconomic status (SES) and sleep, and the relationship between childhood SES and ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) in college students, two factors that are linked to future risk for cardiovascular disease. Participants...

Background Health mindsets can be viewed on a continuum of malleability from fixed (health cannot be altered) to growth (health can be affected by behavior). We propose that mindsets may influence the health perceptions of healthy adolescents as well as the health behaviors of adolescents with a chronic illness.Methods In Study 1, we surveyed healt...

Background Childhood abuse increases risk for high levels of distress in response to future stressors. Interpersonal social support is protective for health, particularly during stress, and may be particularly beneficial for individuals who experienced childhood abuse. Objective Investigate whether childhood abuse predicts levels of posttraumatic...

Background: Poor emotion regulation is associated with post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). However, limited prospective research prevents any directional conclusions. No known studies have assessed emotion regulation with PTSS in American Indians, a high-risk population for poor mental health outcomes. The present prospective study explored whe...

Background American Indians (AIs) live with historical trauma, or the cumulative emotional and psychological wounding that is passed from one generation to the next in response to the loss of lives and culture. Psychological consequences of historical trauma may contribute to health disparities. Purpose Here, we investigate whether historical trau...

Positive affect is associated with more adaptive responses to psychological stress. However, few studies have examined the association between gratitude, a specific type of positive affect, with physiological responses to acute psychological stress. The current study aimed to replicate and extend on previous work examining the associations between...

The Novel-coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-2019) outbreak was declared a national emergency on March 13, 2020. To reduce the spread of the virus, Americans were asked to physically distance and to increase disinfecting behaviors such as hand washing. Previous research indicates that one’s mindset about health, or the degree to which they view health...

Background Early life adversity associates with poor sleep in adulthood and is believed to sensitize individuals to later stressors. Infectious disease outbreaks increase psychological stress, and life events impact sleep quality. American Indians have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective Investigate whether childho...

American Indians are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease in adulthood, and levels of physical activity and body mass index associate with cardiovascular disease risk. Recent research indicates that one’s mindset may play a role in determining health behaviors and outcomes. In a sample of 105 American Indian college students, greater growth...

American Indian adults are at an increased risk for cardiovascular disease compared with non-Hispanic white adults. Scant research exists examining the underlying physiological and psychological mechanisms associated with these risks. This study aimed to examine possible psychological and physiological stress-related mechanisms related to cardiovas...

Maternal biological systems impact infant temperament as early as the prenatal period, though the mechanisms of this association are unknown. Using a prospective, longitudinal design, we found that maternal (N = 89) amplitudes of the late positive potential (LPP) in response to negative stimuli during the second, but not the third, trimester of pre...

American Indian (AI) communities have high levels of stress and trauma and are disproportionately affected by numerous preventable diseases. Here, we describe an academic–community partnership based on a collaboration between Blackfeet Community College students and faculty in Psychology and Immunology at Montana State University (MSU). The collabo...

Background Previous research documents an association between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and immune system inflammation. High chronic inflammation is believed to be one biological pathway through which childhood adversity may affect health into adulthood. The Blackfeet tribal community has high rates of childhood trauma and community memb...

Objectives: In a sample of 90 American Indian (AI) college students (Age M(SD) = 21.47(3.02), 61.1% female), we investigated relationships between stress (perceived psychological stress and recent negative life events), sense of belonging to the university community and tribal community and sleep. We hypothesized that belonging and stress would as...

Diminished cardiac reactions to acute psychological stress are associated with adverse behavioral and health-relevant outcomes. It has been proposed that diminished cardiac reactivity may be a marker for deficits in motivational functioning both at the biological and behavioral levels. Social participation reflects the frequency with which individu...

Objective: To investigate associations between risk in family environments and health-relevant outcomes in college and the role of loneliness. Participants: College students at a state university (N = 360). Methods: We utilized linear regression to examine relationships between risk in family environments and loneliness, perceived stress, affect, a...

Stress-related sleep disturbances are common, and poor sleep quality can negatively affect health. Previous work indicates that early life adversity is associated with compromised sleep quality later in life, but it is unknown whether it predicts greater declines in sleep quality during stressful life transitions. We propose and test a conceptual m...

Objective Low socioeconomic status (SES) in childhood associates with poor sleep quality in adulthood. Separately, childhood family environments shape health into adulthood. Here, we investigated whether these early life factors independently or interactively inform global sleep quality in college students. Design Cross-sectional. Participants Co...

Inflammatory reactivity to acute laboratory stress is thought to reflect individual differences in responsivity to environmental stressors and may confer future health risk. To characterize this response, we conducted a meta-analysis of 34 studies that measured circulating inflammatory markers and 15 studies that measured stimulated production of i...

Inflammatory reactivity to acute laboratory stress is thought to reflect individual differences in responsivity to environmental stressors and may confer future health risk. To characterize this response, we conducted a meta-analysis of 34 studies that measured circulating inflammatory markers before and after exposure to laboratory challenge. Resu...

We examined participation in an ethnically based residential program or “theme house” during the first year of college as a predictor of downstream immune system inflammation among undergraduates. Using a 4-year prospective design, we compared markers of inflammation among Latino/Latina students in a residential theme program with a matched sample...

Objective: Systemic inflammation is thought to be a biological mediator between social relationship quality and premature mortality. Empirical work has yielded mixed support for an association of social relationship variables with systemic inflammation, perhaps due to methodological limitations. To date, research in this literature has focused on...

Objective: Conflict in early life family environments is known to affect psychosocial functioning and coping styles into adulthood and is reported to negatively affect access to psychosocial resources that are critical to the management of stress. However, it remains unknown whether early life family conflict similarly affects subclinical cardiova...

Objectives: Evidence supports an inverse association of childhood socioeconomic status (SES) with systemic inflammation in adulthood. However, it remains to be determined whether this association is dependent on exposure to stressful life experiences. Methods: We predicted that the combination of a high number of recent negative life events and...

Low socioeconomic status (SES) during childhood confers risk for adverse health in adulthood. Accumulating evidence suggests that this may be due, in part, to the association between lower childhood SES and higher levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Drawing from literature showing that low childhood SES predicts exaggerated physiological reactivi...

Implicit cognition, or our unconscious thoughts and beliefs, is an important predictor of our behaviors and decisions. It also predicts outcomes related to physical and mental health at the level of the individual and influences the dynamics of the patient-physician relationship. This article outlines specific ways in which implicit measures of cog...

This research independently manipulated two potential attenuators of stereotype threat – reappraisal of anxiety and test framing – to explore their independent and combined effects. Female participants took a difficult math exam that was described as gender-biased or gender-fair and were told that anxious arousal could positively impact performance...

Negative emotions are reliably associated with poorer health (e.g., Kiecolt-Glaser, McGuire, Robles, & Glaser, 2002), but only recently has research begun to acknowledge the important role of positive emotions for our physical health (Fredrickson, 2003). We examine the link between dispositional positive affect and one potential biological pathway...

This research independently manipulated two potential attenuators of stereotype threat – reappraisal of anxiety and test framing – to explore their independent and combined effects. Female participants took a difficult math exam that was described as gender-biased or gender-fair and were told that anxious arousal could positively impact performance...

We experimentally tested whether negative stereotypes linked to lower socioeconomic status (SES), in addition to impairing academic performance (Croizet & Claire, 1998), instigate inflammation processes that are implicated in numerous disease processes. In Study 1, verbal test performance and activation of inflammation processes (measured by levels...

Background Subjective social status (captured by the MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status) is in many cases a stronger predictor of health outcomes than objective socioeconomic status (SES). Purpose The study aims to test whether implicit beliefs about social class moderate the relationship between subjective social status and inflammation....

Inflammatory cytokine levels predict a wide range of human diseases including depression, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, autoimmune disease, general morbidity, and mortality. Stress and social experiences throughout the lifecourse have been associated with inflammatory processes. We conducted studies in humans and laboratory rats to exami...