SAGE: The Stress, Aging and Emotions Study for Parents
Description
One of our goals is to explore how emotional well-being and different styles of coping with life's stresses are related to cell aging and hormones. We hope to apply this work to developing better stress management interventions, particularly to support families of children with pervasive developmental disorders.
Study Design
The study is longitudinal, taking place over two years, so that we can understand how mood and behavior affect cell-aging over time. Every 6 months, we will ask you to visit UCSF's Parnassus campus for a blood draw and also ask you to complete some questionnaires and assessments at home. Both at one year into the study and at the study end, you will be given personal health feedback: a metabolic assessment including lean body mass, percent body fat, and resting energy expenditure; blood pressure and cholesterol; fasting blood glucose and insulin sensitivity; and a sleep quality analysis.
Participant Requirements
We are looking for healthy, non-smoking mothers between the ages of 20 and 50, who have children age 2-12, to participate. We hope that we can include both mothers whose children have been diagnosed with autism – and also a sample of 'control group' mothers (those whose children are unaffected). If you have a child between the ages of 2 and 12 years old with or without a diagnosis on the autism spectrum, please consider joining the SAGE study.
Payment
We reimburse participants for their time (up to $450), and in addition cover parking and childcare if needed.