DR. CHRIS DUNKEL SCHETTER's Stress Processes and Pregnancy Lab Website

Professor Christine Dunkel Schetter is Professor Psychology and directs the Health Psychology training program. She received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1982 and completed postdoctoral training at UC Berkeley. Her broad research expertise is in stress, coping and social support in a variety of health and mental health contexts. She has studied social relationships and adjustment to cancer, coping with stress and social support in middle-aged couples, psychological adjustment to infertility, genetic screening for cystic fibrosis, and adjustment to HIV/AIDS.

Her primary program of research at present is on stress processes in pregnancy. In this work, Dunkel Schetter and collaborators examine various aspects of prenatal maternal stress including stress exposures, emotional responses, and appraisals of stress and their effects on preterm birth and low birthweight. This program of research involves prospective longitudinal studies of hundreds of pregnant women of diverse ethnicity and socioeconomic status including low income, Hispanic and African American women. Dunkel Schetter and associates have documented that prenatal anxiety reliably predicts time of gestation and that corticotrophin releasing hormone (CRH) is involved in the mechanisms responsible for preterm delivery. In addition, Dunkel Schetter and colleagues have examined the HPA axis in pregnancy and published findings involving levels of ACTH and cortisol as well as CRH at various times in pregnancy and as significant correlates of self-report psychological measures. Dunkel Schetter’s current research is focused mainly on unique risk factors and mechanisms involving African American women, on the role of maternal infection or inflammation in the pathways between stress and birth outcomes, on the role of social support in protecting women in pregnancy, and on planning a preventive intervention trial.


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Professor Christine Dunkel Schetter is Professor Psychology and directs the Health Psychology training program. She received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1982 and completed postdoctoral training at UC Berkeley. Her broad research expertise is in stress, coping and social support in a variety of health and mental health contexts. She has studied social relationships and adjustment to cancer, coping with stress and social support in middle-aged couples, psychological adjustment to infertility, genetic screening for cystic fibrosis, and adjustment to HIV/AIDS. Her primary program of research at present is on stress processes in pregnancy. In this work, Dunkel Schetter and collaborators examine various aspects of prenatal maternal stress including stress exposures, emotional responses, and appraisals of stress and their effects on preterm birth and low birthweight. This program of research involves prospective longitudinal studies of hundreds of pregnant women of diverse ethnicity and socioeconomic status including low income, Hispanic and African American women. Dunkel Schetter and associates have documented that prenatal anxiety reliably predicts time of gestation and that corticotrophin releasing hormone (CRH) is involved in the mechanisms responsible for preterm delivery. In addition, Dunkel Schetter and colleagues have examined the HPA axis in pregnancy and published findings involving levels of ACTH and cortisol as well as CRH at various times in pregnancy and as significant correlates of self-report psychological measures. Dunkel Schetter’s current research is focused mainly on unique risk factors and mechanisms involving African American women, on the role of maternal infection or inflammation in the pathways between stress and birth outcomes, on the role of social support in protecting women in pregnancy, and on planning a preventive intervention trial.	University of California, Los Angeles Department of Psychology 1285 Franz Hall Box 951563 Los Angeles, California 90095-1563 Ph: (310)206-8116 Fax: (310)825-5198 dunkel@psych.ucla.edu