Hendrika M. Schenk

Temporal dynamics of health and well-being: A crowdsourcing approach to momentary assessments and automated generation of personalized feedback

Objective Recent developments in research and mobile health enable a quantitative idiographic approach in health research. The present study investigates the potential of an electronic diary crowdsourcing study in the Netherlands for (1) large-scale automated self-assessment for individual-based health promotion and (2) enabling research at both the between-persons and within-persons level. To illustrate the latter, we examined between-persons and within-persons associations between somatic symptoms and quality of life. Methods A website provided the general Dutch population access to a 30-day (3 times a day) diary study assessing 43 items related to health and well-being, which gave participants personalized feedback. Associations between somatic symptoms and quality of life were examined with a linear mixed model. Results A total of 629 participants completed 28,430 assessments, with a mean (SD) of 45 (32) assessments per participant. Most participants (n = 517 [82%]) were women and 531 (84%) had high education. Almost 40% of the participants (n = 247) completed enough assessments (t = 68) to generate personalized feedback including temporal dynamics between well-being, health behavior, and emotions. Substantial between-person variability was found in the within-person association between somatic symptoms and quality of life. Conclusions We successfully built an application for automated diary assessments and personalized feedback. The application was used by a sample of mainly highly educated women, which suggests that the potential of our intensive diary assessment method for large-scale health promotion is limited. However, a rich data set was collected that allows for group-level and idiographic analyses that can shed light on etiological processes and may contribute to the development of empirical-based health promotion solutions.

Associations of positive affect and negative affect with allostatic load : A Lifelines Cohort Study

Objective Allostatic load (AL) reflects the deteriorating influences of stress on the body and comprises a selection of biological markers. AL is associated with negative life events, stress, and negative affect (NA), as well as poor health outcomes. However, whether AL is also associated with positive affect (PA) is not clear. The present study therefore explores the association between PA and AL, accounting for age, sex, NA, and health behaviors. Methods Data of 45,225 individuals from the first wave of the multidisciplinary prospective population-based cohort study Lifelines were used. AL was operationalized as the sum of 12 inflammatory, cardiovascular, and metabolic markers. The association between PA and AL was tested in a cross-sectional study design using multiple linear regression analysis, adjusting for NA, confounders, and health behaviors. In addition, we explored whether the relation was moderated by age, sex, and NA. Results The AL profile was inversely associated with PA (B = −0.083, p < .001) when adjusted for NA, age, and sex. The association between AL and PA remained significant after adjusting for health behaviors (B = −0.076, p < .001). A significant moderating effect was found for sex (PA by sex: B = 0.046, p = .001), indicating that the association between PA and AL was stronger in women than in men. Conclusions PA was associated with a more favorable AL profile, especially in women. These results add to the evidence that PA might be of relevance to the etiology of disease.

Positive Affect More Important for Metabolic Health Status than Negative Affect

The Development and Feasablity of an Internet-Based Cognitive Behavioral Intervention to reduce Depression and/or Anxiety after a Myocardial Infarction - The U-CARE Heart study

Abstract # 1826 Dynamical association between day-to-day fluctuations in inflammatory markers and affect in healthy individuals

Several studies show an effect of cytokine levels on affect, and vice versa. However, most studies have a cross-sectional study design, therefore it is impossible to study causality between inflammation and affect, in contrast to idiographic studies. The main goal of this study is to explore the effects of 8 inflammatory markers on positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) in an idiographic study design. 10 healthy individuals (3 males, 7 females; age 21–58) filled out the PANAS and collected 24-h-urine for 63 consecutive days. Multiplex analyses were used to quantify levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), Fractalkine, Interleukin-1 receptor-antagonist (IL-1RA), interferon-alpha (IFNalpha), interferon-gamma (IFNgamma), Interferon gamma-induced protein 10 (IP-10), Macrophage inflammatory protein-1beta (MIP-1beta), and Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) in 24-h-urine. First order unified structural equation models (uSEM) were fitted for each individual and each marker, adjusted for exercise, smoking and alcohol use. Preliminary analyses showed different associations for each individual between inflammatory markers and affect. CRP was negatively associated with PA in one individual, Fractalkine showed opposite associations in 3 individuals. In addition, IFNalpha showed opposite associations in two other individuals. IFNgamma, IL1RA, MIP1beta and VEGF were mainly negative associated with PA. Our results suggest that pro- and anti-inflammatory markers influence levels of PA and NA, in healthy individuals. Future research should reveal the role of inflammatory markers as messengers in healthy individuals.