Dr. Cathal McCrory, In the Psychologists' Chair - 23rd April, NCI
TILDA Research Fellow, Dr. Cathal McCrory, will be In the Psychologists' Chair presenting his paper Loneliness and the Heart: Social Disadvantage, Social Isolation and Cardiovascular Health,’ using TILDA data, at the lunchtime series In the Psychologists' Chair. The event is sponsored by The Irish Times and will take place at the National College of Ireland, on Thursday 23rd April from 1-2PM. Registration for this event is free.
As part of his current work, Cathal examines socio-economic variation in mental health and well-being among the 50+ population in Ireland, and explores the pathways, processes and mechanisms through which socially mediated risk factors come to influence health over the life-course, with a particular emphasis on stress. Psychosocial frameworks postulate that those growing in more disadvantaged environments are subjected to a greater number of stressors during development resulting in greater ‘wear and tear’ on physiological systems (i.e. allostatic load) which may precipitate earlier biological ageing.
Understanding how differences in the social environment ‘get under the skin’ may help us understand why a person growing up in a more disadvantaged community in Ireland has a life expectancy at time of birth that is 4.3 years shorter on average compared with those who grow up in more affluent environments (CSO, 2010). Cathal’s research utilizes population-level data (TILDA, ELSA, HRS) to explore the extent to which differences in exposure to stressors can account for disease and mortality differentials between different social groups, leading to the identification of modifiable risk and resilience factors.
In this talk, Cathal will address some of these questions and look at the impact of social isolation and disadvantage on cardiovascular health.
For more information on the In the Psychologists' Chair series, click here
For a summary of Cathal's talk, click here