Sheldon Cohen

Background Biobehavioral rhythms are biological, behavioral, and psychosocial processes with repeating cycles. Abnormal rhythms have been linked to various health issues, such as sleep disorders, obesity, and depression. Objective This study aims to identify links between productivity and biobehavioral rhythms modeled from passively collected mobile data streams. Methods In this study, we used a multimodal mobile sensing data set consisting of data collected from smartphones and Fitbits worn by 188 college students over a continuous period of 16 weeks. The participants reported their self-evaluated daily productivity score (ranging from 0 to 4) during weeks 1, 6, and 15. To analyze the data, we modeled cyclic human behavior patterns based on multimodal mobile sensing data gathered during weeks 1, 6, 15, and the adjacent weeks. Our methodology resulted in the creation of a rhythm model for each sensor feature. Additionally, we developed a correlation-based approach to identify connections between rhythm stability and high or low productivity levels. Results Differences exist in the biobehavioral rhythms of high- and low-productivity students, with those demonstrating greater rhythm stability also exhibiting higher productivity levels. Notably, a negative correlation (C=–0.16) was observed between productivity and the SE of the phase for the 24-hour period during week 1, with a higher SE indicative of lower rhythm stability. Conclusions Modeling biobehavioral rhythms has the potential to quantify and forecast productivity. The findings …

Academic achievement in the first year of college is critical for setting students on a pathway toward long-term academic and life success, yet little is known about the factors that shape early college academic achievement. Given the important role sleep plays in learning and memory, here we extend this work to evaluate whether nightly sleep duration predicts change in end-of-semester grade point average (GPA). First-year college students from three independent universities provided sleep actigraphy for a month early in their winter/spring academic term across five studies. Findings showed that greater early-term total nightly sleep duration predicted higher end-of-term GPA, an effect that persisted even after controlling for previous-term GPA and daytime sleep. Specifically, every additional hour of average nightly sleep duration early in the semester was associated with an 0.07 increase in end-of-term GPA …

Objective This study sought to examine how daily mind wandering is related to loneliness, felt connection to others, and school belonging among college students. Participants Three samples (n= 209, n= 173, and n= 266) on two US campuses were recruited. Methods Data were collected via ecological momentary assessment over the course of two academic quarters in one sample and an academic semester in two samples. Results Social well-being declined throughout the academic term in all samples. Lower day-to-day mind wandering predicted lower loneliness at the next time point and was concurrently related to higher felt connection to others and higher school belonging. Thoughts about the past and future were associated with lower social well-being than present-focused thoughts. Conclusions This research supports the proposition that promoting present-centered attention can benefit college students’ social well-being and alleviate feelings of loneliness and isolation that they often experience.

ObjectiveThere is a need for a brief affect scale that also encompasses different components of affect relevant for researchers interested in physiological and health outcomes. The Subcomponents of Affect Scale (SAS) meets this need. This 18-item scale has nine positive and nine negative affect items encompassing six subscales (calm, well-being, vigour, depression, anxiety, anger). Previous research using the SAS has demonstrated its predictive validity, but no work has tested its subscale structure or longitudinal validity.DesignData from the Common Cold Project in which individuals (N = 610) completed the SAS over the course of seven days were used.ResultsConfirmatory factor analysis demonstrated the reliability of the subscale structure of the SAS across seven days (positive affect subscale structure: CFIs ≥ 0.98; negative affect subscale structure: CFIs ≥ 0.94 with day 6 CFI = 0.91) and tests of factorial …

ObjectiveSocially integrated individuals are at lower risk of cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality compared with their more isolated counterparts. This association may be due, in part, to the effect of social integration on nocturnal blood pressure (BP) decline or “dipping,” a physiological process associated with decreased disease risk. However, the pathways linking social integration with nocturnal BP dipping are unknown. We sought to replicate the association between social integration and BP dipping, and to test whether sleep characteristics (duration, regularity, continuity) and/or daily social interactions (frequency, valence) helped to explain the association.MethodsA total of 391 healthy midlife adults completed an actigraphy assessment protocol that measured sleep. During four actigraphy assessment days, participants also completed ambulatory BP monitoring and ecological momentary assessment …

This paper presents a computational framework for modeling biobehavioral rhythms - the repeating cycles of physiological, psychological, social, and environmental events - from mobile and wearable data streams. The framework incorporates four main components: mobile data processing, rhythm discovery, rhythm modeling, and machine learning. We evaluate the framework with two case studies using datasets of smartphone, Fitbit, and OURA smart ring to evaluate the framework’s ability to (1) detect cyclic biobehavior, (2) model commonality and differences in rhythms of human participants in the sample datasets, and (3) predict their health and readiness status using models of biobehavioral rhythms. Our evaluation demonstrates the framework’s ability to generate new knowledge and findings through rigorous micro- and macro-level modeling of human rhythms from mobile and wearable data streams collected …

Research has consistently shown that positive psychological constructs are linked to better physical health, but few studies have examined the role that race plays in this connection. We explored whether positive self-evaluations were equally protective against upper respiratory infection for 271 African American adults and 700 European American adults in a series of virus-exposure studies. Participants were assessed at baseline for psychological functioning and physical health, quarantined and exposed experimentally to a respiratory virus, and then monitored for infection and symptoms. Regression analyses revealed significant interactions between race and multiple positive psychological factors; several factors that were helpful to European Americans were unhelpful or even harmful to African Americans. Building on past work showing cross-cultural variation in the health correlates of affect, this study provides …

ObjectivesCurrent cancer screening guidelines exist to avert late-stage cancer diagnosis and adverse outcomes. However, only four cancer types (breast, colorectal, cervical, and prostate) have commonly adopted guideline-recommended screening (CGRS) in the United States, and 70% of cancers without CGRS have accounted for most cancer deaths in recent years. The aim of this study was to examine long-term time trends in incidence rates among cancers with and without CGRS.MethodsCrude cancer incidence rates (demonstrating the impact of the aging population over time) per 100,000 and trends in annual percent change were calculated for cancers with and without CGRS in each year from 2000-2018, using Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results population-based data. Rates were further stratified by age, sex, and race.ResultsIncidence rates of cancers without CGRS increased per year by 1.2 …