Publications by authors named "Esmeralda Garcia"

Background: Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Latinxs experience a longer duration of untreated depression and anxiety. LEP Latinxs have difficulty accessing mental healthcare due to insufficient Spanish-speaking behavioral/mental health clinicians to meet demand. These under-resourced healthcare systems are less likely to be the site for the implementation of innovations.

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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 between acculturative stress and problematic eating behaviors, including emotional eating, uncontrolled eating, and cognitive restraint eating.

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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-understood. The current study sought to test the role of depressive symptoms and gender on these associations.

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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.

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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 the present study was to determine whether perceived stress and cortisol, a hormone of the HPA axis implicated in the biopsychological pathway linking stress and disease, are associated with BII.

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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 be an attractive opportunity to create benefits for maternal and infant health outcomes such as reductions in perinatal depressive symptoms and premature birth rates. Thus, we here systematically review and critically discuss the literature that investigates the effects of empowerment, empowerment-related concepts and empowerment interventions on reductions in perinatal depressive symptoms, preterm birth (PTB), and low birthweight (LBW).

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Objective: Greater acculturation is associated with adverse perinatal outcomes in Mexican-American women, but the mechanisms by which acculturation influences perinatal outcomes are unclear. Pregnant acculturated Mexican-American women are more likely to engage in unhealthy prenatal behaviors relative to those less acculturated, including poor sleep. As sleep disruptions are associated with acculturation and negative perinatal outcomes, particularly maternal depression, alterations in sleep may adversely affect pregnant Mexican-American women.

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The objective of this study was to evaluate gender differences in the pain threshold, considering the type of pressure point, its location and the repetition of the assessment. The pressure pain threshold was evaluated in 30 healthy volunteers (12 men and 18 women) in three assessment sessions separated by 15 min and 7 days, respectively. Each assessment session was in turn composed of two trials in each of which 24 different pressure points (symmetrically located), representing the 18 tender points for the diagnosis of fibromyalgia and six control points, were assessed.

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A polymorphism (His452Tyr) of the 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT)2a receptor is associated with episodic memory in healthy young humans. Because 5-HT2a-receptor density decreases with increasing age, we tested whether the 5-HT2a receptor genotype effect on memory is influenced by age. We investigated the association of the His452Tyr genotype with memory performance in 622 healthy study participants aged from 18 to 90 years.

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To test whether antibodies against beta-amyloid are effective in slowing progression of Alzheimer's disease, we assessed cognitive functions in 30 patients who received a prime and a booster immunization of aggregated Abeta(42) over a 1 year period in a placebo-controlled, randomized trial. Twenty patients generated antibodies against beta-amyloid, as determined by tissue amyloid plaque immunoreactivity assay. Patients who generated such antibodies showed significantly slower rates of decline of cognitive functions and activities of daily living, as indicated by the Mini Mental State Examination, the Disability Assessment for Dementia, and the Visual Paired Associates Test of delayed recall from the Wechsler Memory Scale, as compared to patients without such antibodies.

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