Joan K. Monin, associate professor of public health (social and behavioral sciences), has been elected as a Fellow to the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research.
ABMR is the premier honorary scientific organization for scientists working at the interface of behavior and medicine. Election to the society is reserved for those with a proven record of national and international behavioral medicine research excellence. The academy comprises several hundred eminent senior investigators, all of whom have been elected to membership through a highly selective process.
Monin is the director of the Yale School of Public Health’s Social Gerontology and Health Lab, and her research expertise focuses on how emotional and interpersonal processes affect health in older adult relationships.
Using social experiments and analysis of large longitudinal datasets (e.g., Cardiovascular Health Study, National Health and Aging Trends Study), her research seeks to develop effective caregiver-focused as well as dyadic-focused psychosocial interventions to maximize the quality of life of families. Her work ranges from basic studies linking marital processes using observational behavioral coding with cardiovascular reactivity to testing the feasibility of dissemination of psychosocial interventions to older adult communities. She is currently working on several projects investigating how caregivers and care recipients support one another in the context of early-stage dementia.
Monin was nominated for election into the academy by her peers and the resulting vote of approval by the Membership Committee and Executive Council was unanimous.
“It is an honor to be welcomed into this esteemed group of scholars working to improve health care by integrating biomedical and behavioral science,” Monin said. “I am especially excited that this year the academy is focusing on promoting healthy aging at its annual meeting.”
Jeannette Ickovics, the Samuel and Liselotte Herman Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at YSPH, nominated Monin for the academy along with Emory Professor of Public Health Tene T. Lewis. Ickovics, in her nomination letter, called Monin a "leader in the field of aging and health."
Monin has received continuous research funding from the National Institute of Aging for the past 14 years and she is often sought as a co-Investigator for her expertise in dyadic design, theory, and analysis, Ickovics said.
Monin is also doing community engaged work with people living with dementia to raise their voices and design interventions with the community she is serving. This work with the Empowering Partnerships Network (EPN) at LiveWell Institute has been underway for five years. Included in this initiative is guiding undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral students to engage with the community by living and working at LiveWell to bridge the gap between academia and lived experiences of the communities that public health scientists are serving.
Ickovics noted that Monin was awarded the American Psychological Association’s 2020 Florence L. Denmark Award for her contribution to older adult women’s health and the early career award from the Society for the Study of Human Development for her work on social, emotional, and health processes across the life course.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 55 million people have dementia worldwide and more than 60% of these individuals live in low- and middle-income countries. There are nearly 10 million new cases of dementia every year.
Dementia results from a variety of diseases and injuries that affect the brain. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia and is believed to contribute to up to 70% of cases. Current estimates are that about 5.8 million people in the U.S. have Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. By 2060, that number is expected to rise to 14 million people, with minority populations being affected the most, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Women are disproportionately affected by dementia, both directly and indirectly, according to the WHO. Women experience higher disability-adjusted life years and mortality due to dementia, but also provide 70% of care hours for people living with dementia.
Research has shown that partner disability and suffering affect older adult caregivers’ psychological and physical health. One of the goals of Monin’s Social Gerontology and Health Lab is to identify ways to minimize the negative consequences of caregiving and improve the quality of life and health of caregivers and their partners.
“Caregivers have an enormous, yet underappreciated, impact on the health of communities all over the world,” Monin said. “Caregiving for a person living with an illness or disability can be a form of love but can be extremely stressful at times. Societies need to provide structural, practical, educational, and emotional support, and focus on the health of caregivers and care recipients together, if we truly want to improve health for everyone.
Monin has a PhD in psychology from Carnegie Mellon University (2007) and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Rochester (2003). She participated in a postdoctoral fellowship in gerontology and psychophysiology at the University of Pittsburgh in 2010. She joined the Yale School of Public Health as a researcher and instructor in 2010.
She will be formally inducted into the ABMR at its annual meeting in June.