Major Studies

Australia Study

We have collected extensive diagnostic, social, and stress data on more than 800 15-year-olds and their mothers in Queensland, Australia. The sample was selected from a birth cohort study of pregnant women and their children directed by the Mater-University Study of Pregnancy. The age 15 sub-study represents the largest known community-based study of depressed women and their children. The youth and their mothers were followed up at age 20, and most of the youth were retained for sampling genetic specimens at approximately age 25. The age 15-25 data were collected in collaboration with Professor Patricia Brennan (Emory University) and Jake Najman and colleagues of the University of Queensland.

High School Study

The Los Angeles High School study intensively followed approximately 150 unselected high school senior women for 5 years. The goal was to learn more about predictors of depression in the transition to adulthood. [Dr. Hammen is also a co-investigator on an ongoing high school study jointly conducted in Los Angeles and Illinois, headed by Dr. Michelle Craske (UCLA) and Drs. Sue Mineka and Rick Zinbarg (Northwestern)].

Bipolar Study

A one-year longitudinal study of bipolar I patients was completed recently by our lab, with a particular focus on the role of stressors, expressed emotion, and social functioning on clinical and functional outcomes. [Dr. Hammen was also a collaborator on a recently completed study of recovery from mania, examining stress and neuropsychological and neuroanatomic predictors of clinical and functional outcomes; the study was directed by Lori Altshuler, M.D., of the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences].