Biocultural research in global mental health: Mapping blood pressure and idioms of distress:
Former PhD student Amelia Sancilio, in collaboration with Dr. Catherine Panter-Brick and Mark Eggerman, investigated the associations between blood pressure and idioms of distress adults involved in a population survey in Afghanistan. They focus on how cultural concepts of distress map on to physiological stress, specifically focusing on indigenous terms referring to pressure, anxiety, and dysphoria. The resulting article can be viewed here.
Comparing the validity of the self reporting questionnaire and the Afghan symptom checklist: dysphoria, aggression, and gender in transcultural assessment of mental health:
Collaborators Dr. Amelia Sancilio, Dr. Catherine Panter-Brick, Mark Eggerman, Dr. Andrew Rasmussen, and Dr. Peter Ventevogel evaluated measures of wellbeing in Afghanistan by comparing the extent to which screening for poor mental health (using a standard WHO scale) maps onto psychosocial distress (using a culturally-specific scale) and physiological stress (using biomarkers such as blood pressure). The published paper can be found here.