Publications by authors named "Hector A Olvera-Alvarez"

Background: Emerging epidemiological evidence indicates nature exposure could be associated with greater health benefits among groups in lower versus higher socioeconomic positions. One possible mechanism underpinning this evidence is described by our framework: (susceptibility) adults in low socioeconomic positions face higher exposure to persistent psychosocial stressors in early life, inducing a pro-inflammatory phenotype as a lifelong susceptibility to stress; (differential susceptibility) susceptible adults are more sensitive to the health risks of adverse (stress-promoting) environments, but also to the health benefits of protective (stress-buffering) environments.

Objective: Experimental investigation of a pro-inflammatory phenotype as a mechanism facilitating greater stress recovery from nature exposure.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) encompass negative, stressful, and potentially traumatic events during childhood, impacting physical and mental health outcomes in adulthood. Limited studies suggest ACEs can have short-term effects on children's gut microbiomes and adult cognitive performance under stress. Nevertheless, the long-term effects of ACEs experienced during adulthood remain unexplored.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Although blunted sensitivity to reward is thought to play a key role in promoting risk for depression, most research on this topic has utilized monetary reward paradigms and focused on currently depressed adults. To address this issue, we analyzed neural reward and β-endorphin data from the Psychobiology of Stress and Adolescent Depression (PSY SAD) Study, which recruited a well-characterized sample of adolescent girls at high vs. low risk for major depressive disorder (MDD) ( = 52,  = 14.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Few quantitative studies have documented the types of research topics most commonly employed by nursing PhD students and whether they differ by program delivery (in-person vs. online/hybrid programs).

Objectives: We examined a large set of publicly available PhD dissertation abstracts to (a) describe the relative prevalence of different research topics and methods and (b) test whether the primary topics and methods used differed between online or hybrid and in-person PhD programs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Depression is a common, often recurrent disorder that causes substantial disease burden worldwide, and this is especially true for women following the pubertal transition. According to the Social Signal Transduction Theory of Depression, stressors involving social stress and rejection, which frequently precipitate major depressive episodes, induce depressive symptoms in vulnerable individuals in part by altering the activity and connectivity of stress-related neural pathways, and by upregulating components of the immune system involved in inflammation. To test this theory, we recruited adolescent females at high and low risk for depression and assessed their psychological, neural, inflammatory, and genomic responses to a brief (10 minute) social stress task, in addition to trait psychological and microbial factors affecting these responses.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Evolutionary psychology theories propose that contact with green, natural environments may benefit physical health, but little comparable evidence exists for brown, natural environments, such as the desert. In this study, we examined the association between "brownness" and "greenness" with fasting glucose among young residents of El Paso, Texas. We defined brownness as the surface not covered by vegetation or impervious land within Euclidian buffers around participants' homes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: While greenness has been associated with lower depression, the generalizability of this association in arid landscapes remains undetermined. We assessed the association between depression and residential greenness, but also brownness and grayness among nursing students living in El Paso, Texas (the Chihuahuan desert).

Methods: Depression was measured with the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 scale and greenness with the normalized difference vegetation index across three buffer sizes (i.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Evidence suggests that behavioral, social, and environmental factors may modify the effects of life stress on health and performance of new nurses as they transition to hospitals.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to describe the methods of a project designed to investigate the role of social, behavioral, and environmental factors in modifying the adverse effects of stress on new nurses and to discuss demographic, health, and life stress characteristics of the cohort at baseline.

Methods: A prospective cohort design was used to conduct a comprehensive assessment of health endpoints, life stress, behaviors, personal traits, social factors, indicators of engagement and performance, and environmental exposures in nursing students.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A yearlong air monitoring campaign was conducted to assess the impact of local temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed on the temporal and spatial variability of PM in El Paso, Texas. Monitoring was conducted at four sites purposely selected to capture the local traffic variability. Effects of meteorological events on seasonal PM variability were identified.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Socially disadvantaged individuals are at greater risk for simultaneously being exposed to adverse social and environmental conditions. Although the mechanisms underlying joint effects remain unclear, one hypothesis is that toxic social and environmental exposures have synergistic effects on inflammatory processes that underlie the development of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression, and certain types of cancer. In the present review, we examine how exposure to two risk factors that commonly occur with social disadvantage-early life stress and air pollution-affect health.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose Of The Review: Environmental and social determinants of health often co-occur, particularly among socially disadvantaged populations, yet because they are usually studied separately, their joint effects on health are likely underestimated. Building on converging bodies of literature, we delineate a conceptual framework to address these issues.

Recent Findings: Previous models provided a foundation for study in this area, and generated research pointing to additional important issues.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF