Welcome to the Popwell Lab AT HARVARD
INCREASING OUR UNDERSTANDING
OF
WELLNESS IN THE
GLOBAL POPULATION
The Population Wellness Lab, led by Christy Denckla, studies how trauma, loss, and bereavement affect mental and physical health. We seek to understand how people adapt to and recover from adverse events. How does loss shape our understanding of ourselves and the world around us? Ultimately, we can use this knowledge to promote wellness and health across the lifespan for all.
Population wellness
We seek to differentiate why some people experience psychopathology after bereavement or trauma, while others appear resistant to psychiatric burden, cognitive decline, and physical illness.
Our ultimate goal is to better understand the effects of loss and trauma on human health, which will help identify strategies to promote well-being from the cradle to the grave. We envision a world where state-of-the-art evidence informs population-level interventions that prevent downstream adverse health outcomes among all people. To this end, we study cognitive health and neurocognition as well as gene environment interplay, psychiatric risk, and physical health. We have a global focus and deep interest in multicultural perspectives, sustaining collaborations and projects nationally and internationally in the United States, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Nepal, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, and Ghana.
Why study grief and bereavement?
Post-traumatic psychopathology is associated with significant morbidity and mortality, despite the availability of clinical interventions. This is partly due to our current limited understanding of the biological, psychosocial, and environmental factors at the population level that interact to maintain or prevent post-traumatic psychopathology. Our research addresses this limitation by conducting analyses in large, population-based cohorts with longitudinal, genetic, and prospective psychosocial data to identify the complex mechanisms that contribute to psychopathology. The long-term goal of our work is to: 1) characterize modifiable factors that prevent worsening mental and physical health after bereavement and trauma, and 2) characterize broad population mental health perspectives from novel theoretical and conceptual perspectives.
Media Posts &
Latest News from the Lab
Dr. Denckla served as Science Advisor for the book Grief Is Love: Living with Loss, written by Marisa Renee Lee and published by Legacy Lit. Read about the book here.
OUR RESEARCH
Bereavement
and Grief
Social and Biological
Determinants of Health
Chronic Stress
and Climate Change
While extensive research exists on the impact of acute traumatic events, less is known about the impact of chronic stressors on mental health and well-being. For example, the negative effects of a natural disaster are well-documented in the trauma literature, while the stress-related consequences of slower-moving, chronic aspects of climate change are largely unknown. Our ongoing projects seek to bridge this knowledge gap.
