A new systemic review and multivariate meta-analysis published in the Journal of Nature Human Behaviour looked at the physical and mental health benefits of touch interventions. “Our study is a meta-analysis, meaning that we collected data from all available studies and merged it together, on the effects of touch interventions on health benefits,” study author Julian Packheiser told us. "Our aim was to find out if touch is suitable to improve physical and mental well-being in general. Since that is however well-known, we wanted to dig deeper. We wanted to find out if what factors influence the ..read more

Middle aged Americans are experiencing significantly higher levels of loneliness than their European peers. Research published in American Psychologist found that baby boomers in particular are experiencing high levels of loneliness. “We found that later-born cohorts of middle-aged adults in the U.S. reported higher levels of loneliness compared to earlier-born cohorts. For the U.S., England, and Mediterranean Europe, silent generation middle-aged adults reported lower levels of loneliness compared to baby boomers and generation X who reported higher levels of loneliness. We did not observe a ..read more

The United States has fallen out of the world’s top 20 happiest countries. The World Happiness Report revealed the US fell from number 15 to number 23, putting it out of the top 20 for the first time since the report was published in 2012. “Unfortunately, it comes as no surprise to me that the United States is no longer among the world’s 20 happiest countries. The drop from number 15 to 23 is a harsh reminder of the chronic stress and sense of fragmentation that is rife in the United States,” Carla Marie Manly, PhD a clinical psychologist based in California told Theravive. “Prior to the pande ..read more

A new study published in eLife looked at how hippocampal-occipital connectivity reflects autobiographical memory deficits in aphantasia. “Our study is about the relationship between inner images and our ability to recall personal past events (autobiographical memory),” study author Cornelia McCormick told us. “We set out to see whether these inner images are essential to remembering autobiographical memories. Aphantasia describes a normal neuropsychological variant in the population which prohibits people to ‘see’ inner images. Therefore, we chose to investigate autobiographical memory deficit ..read more

A new study published in Taylor & Francis looked at forced separation between people and their companion animals. “The research was about people and pets that shared a human-animal bond and had experienced a crisis situation, such as domestic violence, homelessness and natural disasters,” study author Jasmine Montgomery told us. “I was hopeful to find out what were the impacts on people and their pets when they were faced with being forced to separate from their pets because of a crisis situation.” While working as a social worker, Montgomery determined it was evident that despite what eve ..read more

A new study published in PLOS One looked at reactions to macro-level shocks and re-examination of adaptation theory using Big Data “Our study wanted to determine whether two different types of macro-level shocks (lockdown – endogenous and the invasion of Ukraine – exogenous to the countries under investigation) affected happiness differently,” study author Stephanié Rossouw told us. “Additionally, we wanted to determine whether adaptation theory, established using survey data on a micro-level, is upheld when you use Big Data at the macro-level.” The research team knew from previous studies fro ..read more

A new study published in Cities and Health looked at associations between real-time, self-reported adolescent mental health and urban and architectural design concepts. “First, we designed a walking route (1.7km) with seven stops, and quantified the actual spaces according to a number of features of pedestrian and transit oriented design,” study author Leia Minaker told us. “Next, we took 70 kids between nine and 17 years old on a walk, and had them fill out these surveys at each stop.” The research team asked them to look around and be mindful of their surroundings (smells, sights, sounds, f ..read more

A new study published in the Journal of School Violence looked at assessing the relationship between exposure to violence and perceptions of school safety and emergency preparedness in the context of lockdown drills. “Our study considers the relationship between students’ participation in lockdown drills, their exposure to violence at school, and their perceptions of school safety and emergency preparedness,” study author Jaclyn Schildkraut told us. “This is a relationship that we and other researchers had not considered all together before - some people have looked at the intersection of expo ..read more

A recently published study looked at depression detection using in-the-wild smartphone images. “Our study, MoodCapture, explores the innovative use of smartphone technology to detect signs of depression through ‘in-the-wild’ facial expressions captured by the front-facing camera during routine phone unlocks or app use,” co-first author Subigya Nepal told us. “We aimed to assess whether these spontaneous images, which reflect authentic emotions free from the biases of self-presentation, could serve as reliable indicators for depression. Our hope was to uncover patterns and cues within these ima ..read more

Teenagers who grow up in large families have poorer mental health than their peers who grew up in a family with fewer siblings. Researchers from Ohio State University found that in an analysis of children growing up in the US and China, having a larger number of siblings had ramifications for the mental health of teenagers. “In two nationally representative datasets (one in China, one in the US), the number of siblings was negatively associated with mental health. Seeing the pattern in two different contexts (China and the US) gives us greater confi ..read more