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Episode 135 :: Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo :: Mindfulness and Caregivers of Veterans

May 19, 2019

Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo

Dr. Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo joins us to speak about her study on mindfulness helping caregivers of veterans.

We’ve done several episodes on this podcast about mindfulness for military personnel, pre and post deployment, to help them with resulting problems like PTSD, or the prevention of it. Those challenges are sometimes faced by others as well, as informal caregivers like spouses or immediate family of veterans can be forgotten in the need for help, as they help their loved ones, particularly in underserved communities.

Dr. Lara-Cinisomo is a developmental psychologist whose research focuses on addressing mental health disparities in women and mothers, particularly racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, and military populations. Her research approach builds on a framework focused on psychosocial, cultural, structural and physiological factors. Specifically, she examines how contextual factors (e.g., culture, biology) are associated with poor mental health in her populations of interest. As such, she takes an integrated approach to understand mental health disparities in mothers and women. Recently, she completed several studies that examine associations between hormone function (i.e., cortisol and oxytocin) and perinatal depression in Latinas. Her recent studies also tested the effectiveness of a mindfulness-based intervention on reducing stress, depression, anxiety and worry in caregivers of veterans, most of whom were women. Currently, she is conducting a multisite study on prenatal depression, diabetes, and disease management.