Lauri Pasch, PhD

PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
Assistant Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychiatry

Phone: (415) 476-7760
Fax: (415) 476-7744
E-mail: lauri.pasch@ucsfmedctr.org

Research Interests:

My current research focuses on stress adaptation and health in couples. My work addresses the question of how health problems impact couple and family functioning, as well as the reverse, how couple and family functioning impact health.

My main research interest is psychological aspects of infertility. I have recently completed a longitudinal study investigating psychological and relationship consequences of the use of assisted reproductive technologies (ART). Although there has been much concern about how ART failures affect individuals and couples, the current research literature contains more gaps than answers. The goals of the research are to determine the level and severity of psychological and marital distress following IVF failure and to identify those individuals at highest risk for negative outcomes. This research is based on a vulnerability, stress, and coping model. The findings will guide the development of assessment and intervention protocols for couples using and considering using ARTs. This grant is part of a larger program project to investigate individual, family and societal outcomes of infertility (N. Adler, PI).

My other primary research interest is social support in marital relationships. I have been studying how partners help each other to contend with personal problems and how the quality of support behaviors predict marital and individual outcomes. My colleagues and I developed a laboratory interaction task and a microanalytic coding system to study support seeking and provision in married couples. We have shown that the quality of these interactions predicts the longitudinal course of marital dysfunction. Current research involves examining the processes by which deficits in support skills lead to marital deterioration.

Selected Publications:

Shehab D, Duff J, Pasch LA, MacDougall K, Schieb JE, Nachtigall RD. (2007). How parents whose children have been conceived with donor gametes make their disclosure decision: contexts, influences, and couple dynamics. Fertility & Sterility, 2, 1767-1789.

Pasch LA, Deardorff J, Tschann JM, Flores E, Penilla C, Pantoja P. (2006). Acculturation, parent-adolescent conflict, and adolescent adjustment in Mexican-American families. Family Process, 45 (1), 75-86.

Casey-Canon S, Pasch LA, Tschann JM, Flores,E. (2006). Nonparent adult social support and depressive symptoms among Mexican American and European American Adolescents. Journal of Early Adolescence, 26 ( 3), 318-343.

Tschann JM, Flores E, Pasch L.A, Marin B. (2005). Emotional distress, alcohol use, and peer violence among Mexican American and European American Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 37(1), 11-18.

Sullivan KT, Pasch LA, Carnelius T, Cirigliano E. (2004). Predicting participation in premarital prevention programs: The Health Belief Model and social norms. Family Process, 43, 175-194.

Pasch LA, Dunkel-Schetter C, Christensen A. (2002). Differences between husbands and wives in approach to infertility: The effect on marital communication and adjustment. Fertility & Sterility, 77(6), 1241-1247.

Pasch LA, Harris KM, Sullivan KT, Bradbury TN. (2002). The social support interaction coding system. In P Kerig, D Baucom (Eds.), Couple observational coding systems. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Pasch LA. (2001). Confronting fertility problems. In A Baum, T Revenson, J Singer (Eds.), The handbook of health psychology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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