Health and Coping Lab (Luecken)

Keywords

childhood adversity, cortisol, health, culture, self-regulation, mother-child interactions, school, puberty, biological influences on healthy development, body composition, Mexican-American

Lab Area

Clinical Psychology

Developmental Psychology

Actively Recruiting Undergraduate Researchers

Yes

Research conducted in The Health and Coping Lab examines developmental, cultural and cognitive influences on stress, coping and physical health. Our primary areas of focus include women’s health, infant health and development in low resource environments, mediators of physiological stress responses, and the influence of childhood adversity on biological stress systems and physical health in adulthood.

Current Projects

Las Madres Nuevas (The New Mothers Project) is a large, NIH-funded longitudinal study that is following 322 Mexican-origin mothers and their children from birth through child age 16 with home visits, ASU visits, and phone surveys. The project examines cultural, contextual, and biological factors that affect mother’s mental health, mother-child interactions, and child development. We have examined how parents and children regulate each other’s mental and behavioral health, and how these processes promote the emergence of child self-regulation and competencies across the transition to school and puberty. We are particularly interested in understanding how cultural factors promote healthy child development.

To address potential health inequities among ethnic minority populations in the US, we aim to understand social, cultural, behavioral, and biological influences on the course of healthy development from the prenatal period through infancy and childhood. Later data collection time points extend the project’s aims to examine how cultural, social, environmental, and psychological factors affect physical health of the mother and child, and the implications for cardiometabolic markers such as blood pressure, body composition, BMI, cholesterol, and inflammation. A central goal is to evaluate trajectories of weight gain and cardiometabolic health over time among study participants and identify risk and protective influences on child and family health. Our approach emphasizes the cultural embeddedness of healthy development, with the view that health equity can best be achieved by understanding sociocultural and economic forces that shape health and health behaviors.

Data collection currently involves a 2-3-hour lab visit on campus with both the mom/guardian and adolescent to complete a variety of tasks, surveys and biological collections.

Linda Luecken, Ph.D. – Professor and Principal Investigator

Linda Luecken received her bachelor's from The Ohio State University, master's from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and doctorate from Duke University. Since 2000, she has been a member of the clinical and developmental psychology faculty at Arizona State University. Her research interests include, broadly, health psychology; women's health; social, developmental, and personality predictors of cardiovascular and hormonal stress reactivity; and the impact of early intervention on the development of biological stress regulation.

Professor Luecken's program of research involves studies of perinatal health in low-income and ethnic minority women; long-term physiological and health correlates of childhood adversity (parental death, parental divorce, maltreatment); and risk and protective influences on the emergence of biological, behavioral, and emotion self-regulation in low income and ethnic minority infants and children.

Marisol Perez, Ph.D. – Principal Investigator, Associate Vice Provost and Professor

Marisol Perez is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University. Her program of research encompasses both theoretical and applied studies in the area of eating psychopathology, often using a focus on Latino populations. She currently serves as editor for Clinician's Research Digest, is President for the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology, a JEDI Faculty Fellow for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and serving on the Board of Scientific Affairs Task force on Inequities in Academic Tenure and Promotion for the American Psychological Association.

Body Image Research and Health Disparities (BIRHD) Lab

Staff

Image	Jody Southworth Brown – Project Director Jody has been the project manager for LMN since 2016. She earned her degree in Early Childhood Education and spent 12 years teaching elementary school before changing careers. When she is not working, she spends time with her teenage son, watches the Pittsburgh Penguins and Steelers, and loves finding new places to explore.
Image	Star Shepherd Star is a child interviewer for the Las Madres Nuevas Lab. She graduated from ASU with her Bachelor's degree in Psychology with a minor in Law and Human Behavior. When she is not working, Star enjoys a multitude of hobbies, such as hanging out with her two dogs and cat, playing the ukulele, doing photography, drawing, and reading a good book.
Image	Santiago Swanson Santiago is a bilingual interviewer for the Las Madres Nuevas lab. He received his Bachelors in Conservation Biology and Ecology from Arizona State University. When he is not working, Santi enjoys spending time exploring the outdoors, playing games, visiting with family, and relaxing at home with his cats Emilia and Adrian.
Image	Kenya Torres Kenya has been a bilingual interviewer for the Las Madres Nuevas Lab since 2021. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Psychology at Arizona State University and is primarily interested in early childhood intervention and developmental research. When she is not working, Kenya reads romance and fantasy novels, spends time with her family and bakes desserts for any occasion.
Image	Michelle Valdez Michelle has been with the Las Madres Nuevas Lab since 2022 as a bilingual interviewer. She is currently finishing her Bachelor's degree in Psychology with a minor in Family and Human Development. When she is not at the lab, Michelle spends her time at her other job with Tempe's Crisis Response Team - CARE 7, playing the violin with ASU's Mariachi program, spending time with her family and friends, and embracing the opportunities life has to offer.

Doctoral Students

TBD

ASU Experts List

Google Scholar

Select Publications

Below are a sample of recent publications from Dr. Luecken's research.

Curci, S.C., Frangos, M., Torres-Aguirre, K., Clifford, B., & Luecken, L.J. (in press). Postpartum depressive symptoms and mother-infant dyadic reciprocity: Moderating role of partner support. Developmental Psychology.
Armah, A., Lin, B., Gonzales, N., Luecken, L.J., & Crnic, K. (in press).Immigration stress and maternal sensitivity in a Mexican immigrant sample: The role of parasympathetic activity and familism values. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology.
Winstone-Weide, L., Somers, J.A., Curci, S.G., & Luecken, L.J. (2023). A dynamic perspective on depressive symptoms during the first year postpartum. Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science, 132, 949.
Curci, S., Luecken, L.J., Hernandez, J., Winstone, L., & Perez, M. (2023). Multilevel prenatal socioeconomic predictors of Mexican American children’s cardiometabolic health in preschool and school-age. Health Psychology, 42, 788.
Putnam, S. P., Sehic, E., French, B., Gartstein, M.A., Lira Luttges, B. and 489 Members of the Global Temperament Project (2024). The Global Temperament Project: Parent-Reported Temperament in Infants, Toddlers and Children from 59 Nations. Developmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001732. (Member of Global Temperament Project).
Curci, S.G., Hernandez, J., Winstone, L, Perez, M., & Luecken, L.J. (2023). Discrimination and depressive symptoms among Mexican American women: Exploring multi-level sociocultural moderators. Clinical Psychological Science, 11, 444-457.
Curci, S.G., Somers, J.A., Winstone, L, & Luecken, L.J. (2023). Within-dyad bidirectional relations among maternal depressive symptoms and child behavior problems from infancy through preschool. Development and Psychopathology, 35, 547-557.
Flagg, A., Lin, B., Crnic, K,Gonzales, N., Luecken, LJ. (2023). Intergenerational consequences of maternal childhood maltreatment on infant health concerns. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 27, 1981-1989
Perez, M., Winstone, L.K., Hernandez, J.C., Curci, S.G., & Luecken, L.J. (2023). Association of BMI trajectories with cardiometabolic risk at age 7.5 years among low-income Mexican American children. Pediatric Research, 93, 1233-1238.
Somers, J., & Luecken, L.J. (2022). Prenatal programming of behavior problems via second-by-second infant emotion dynamics. Psychological Science, 33, 2027-2039.
Perez, M., Winstone, L.K., Curci, S.G., Hernandez, J.C., Somers, J.A., & Luecken, L.J. (2022). Longitudinal associations between early child weight gain, parent feeding, child self-regulation, and later child BMI. Pediatric Obesity, 17(4), 1-10..
Roubinov, D.S., Somers, J.A., & Luecken, L.J. (2022). Maternal depressive symptoms, paternal engagement, and toddler behavior problems in low-income Mexican-origin families. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 51(5), 662-674.

Contact Us

Contact Jody Southworth-Brown at jody.southworth@asu.edu if you are interested in participating in this lab.