Speakers will include members of the Sleep Stress Research team at Howard University and outside experts. CME and CEUs will be offered and admission is free.

(Black PR Wire) The Howard University Center for Clinical and Translational Research and Stress/Sleep Studies Program will hold a research symposium on Monday, July 17 to examine the relationship between sleep and health, including the role of compromised sleep on the health of African Americans living in stressful urban environments.

Speakers will include members of the Sleep Stress Research team at Howard University and outside experts. The symposium will be held 8:30 a.m. to noon at the Interdisciplinary Research Building, 2201 Georgia Ave., Washington DC, 20059. CME and CEUs will be offered and admission is free.

In April, the National Institutes of Health awarded psychiatry professor Dr. Thomas Mellman a new $2 million, five-year grant to continue to study sleep, stress, and cardiovascular health. The grant was awarded through the NIH’s National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. Dr. Mellman is director of the Center for Clinical and Translational Research and Stress/Sleep Studies Program.

The Sleep Stress Research team, including Tyish Hall Brown and Ihori Kobayashi from the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, will recruit young adult minority residents of stressful neighborhoods and conduct assessments and in-home monitoring of posttraumatic and neighborhood stress, sleep behaviors, and cardiovascular risks. Researchers will also pilot test an educational/ behavioral intervention.

The goals of the symposium include broadening knowledge of emerging evidence for the impact of sleep on health, awareness of sleep’s role as a mediator of the impact stress has on sleep and the implications for preventive health policies and interventions, and awareness of the role for compromised sleep in the health disparities that impact African Americans living in stressful urban environments.

Presentations will feature recent research that addresses how environmental stressors and traumatic life experiences can impact sleep and in turn affect emotional and physical health, and how these effects can be mitigated through healthy sleep behaviors and adaptions. 

To register to attend the symposium, please click here.

For additional information or for those interested in participating in the sleep and stress study, please contact Travan Hurst at (202) 806-6729 or tlhurst@Howard.edu.

SPEAKERS

Thomas A. Mellman, M.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and director, Center for Clinical and Translational Research and Stress/Sleep Studies Program

Ihori Kobayashi, Ph.D., research assistant professor, Howard University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Kimberly Bell, Ph.D., assistant professor of neuropsychology, University of the District of Columbia

Paul Marvar, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Pharmacology & Physiology and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, GW Institute for Neuroscience, George Washington University

Martica Hall, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, psychology and clinical and translational science, co-director Sleep and Chronobiology Research and Training

Mary Katherine Howell, M.A., graduate student, Howard University Department of Psychology  

Scott Collier, Ph.D., FACSM, associate professor, director of Vascular Biology and Autonomic Studies Laboratory Appalachian State University

Tyish Hall Brown, Ph.D. – associate professor, Howard University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

(8:30 AM – 12:10 p.m.)

Continental Breakfast at 8:30 a.m.