Dana Rose Garfin

Dr. Dana Rose Garfin, PhD is an Assistant Professor-in-Residence in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA. Trained as a psychologist, her work explores 1) how negative life events and collective traumas (including natural disasters, climate-related hazards, epidemics/pandemics, and terrorist attacks) impact individuals and communities across the lifespan; 2) how community-based interventions can help alleviate the harmful effects of trauma exposure, particularly in populations with high health disparities; and 3) how psychological responses (including affective responses and threat perceptions) guide protective behaviors in the face of community disasters. Dr. Garfin uses a biopsychosocial, multi-methodological approach to examining these issues, which includes longitudinal, epidemiological surveys; qualitative focus groups; biological indicators of the stress response; and community-based clinical trials.

Dr. Garfin is dedicated to ensuring research findings are translated into public discourse and policy. She has received early career awards from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, the American Public Health Association, and the Academy for Behavioral Medicine Research. 

 

Education

  • PhD, Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, CA
  • MA, Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine, CA
  • BA, Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder, CO

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Areas of Interest

Trauma, stress, disaster, mental health, collective trauma, early life adversity, and stress and coping across the lifespan; health disparities; psychological (including affective and cognitive) responses to climate change and related hazards; survey design and sampling techniques, mixed-methods research, and community-based interventions; mindfulness-based approaches.

Selected Publications

  • Garfin, D. R., Thompson, R. R., Holman E. A., Wong-Parodi, G., & Silver, R. C. (2022). A longitudinal study of Floridians responses to repeated hurricane exposure. JAMA Network Open, 5(6), e2217251. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.17251
  • Garfin, D. R., Thompson, R. R., & Wong-Parodi, G. (2022). Media exposure, threat processing, and mitigation behaviors in Gulf Coast residents facing the compounding threats of COVID-19 and hurricanes. Risk Analysis. http://doi.org/10.1111/risa.14032
  • Garfin, D. R., Holman E. A., Fischhoff, B., & Silver, R. C. (2022). Media exposure, risk perceptions, and fear: Americans’ behavioral responses to the Ebola public health crisis. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 77, 103059. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.103059
  • Wong-Parodi, G., & Garfin, D. R. (2022). Hurricane adaptation behaviors in Texas and Florida: Exploring the role of negative personal experience and subjective attribution to climate change. Environmental Research Letters, 17, 034033. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4858
  • Garfin, D. R., Fischhoff, B., Holman, E. A., & Silver, R. C. (2021). Risk perceptions and health behaviors during the emergence of COVID-19 in the United States: Results from a probability-based nationally representative sample. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 27(4), 584–598. http://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000374
  • Garfin, D. R., Osorio, J., Amador, A., Ruivivar, K, & Nyamathi, A. M. (2022). A multi-method exploration of mindfulness as a coping tool: perspectives from trauma-exposed, unhoused women residing at a drug treatment facility. Stress and Health. https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.3188
  • Silver, R. C., Holman, E. A., & Garfin, D. R. (2021). Coping with cascading collective traumas in the United States. Nature Human Behaviour, 5, 4-6. 10.1038/s41562-020-00981-x
  • Garfin, D. R., Silver, R. C., & Holman, E. A. (2020). The novel Coronavirus (COVID-2019) outbreak: Amplification of public health consequences by media exposure. Health Psychology, 39(5), 355- 357. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/hea0000875
  • Garfin, D. R., Holman, E. A., & Silver, R. C. (2020). Exposure to prior negative life events and responses to the Boston Marathon bombings. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 12, 320-329. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0000486
  • Holman, E. A., Thompson, R. R., Garfin, D. R., & Silver, R. C. (2020). The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic: A probability-based, nationally representative study of mental health in the United States. Science Advances, 6, eabd5390. http:// doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abd5390
  • Garfin, D. R., Thompson, R., & Holman, E. A. (2018). Acute stress and subsequent health outcomes: A systematic review. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 112, 107-113. https://10.1016/j.jpsychores.2018.05.017
  • Garfin, D. R., Holman, E. A., & Silver, R. C. (2015). Cumulative exposure to prior collective trauma and acute stress responses to the Boston Marathon bombings. Psychological Science, 26, 675-683. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976145610
  • Garfin, D. R., Silver, R. C., Ugalde, F. J., Linn, H., & Inostroza, M. (2014). Exposure to rapid succession disasters: A study of residents at the epicenter of the Chilean Bio-Bio earthquake. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 123, 545-556. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0037374
  • Garfin, D. R., Silver, R. C., Gil-Rivas, V., Guzmán, J., Murphy, J. M., Cova, F., Rincon, P. P., Squicciarini, A. M., George, M., & Guzmán, M. P. (2014). Children’s reactions to the 2010 Chilean earthquake: The role of trauma exposure, family context, and school-based mental health programming. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 6, 563-573. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036584
  • Holman, E. A., Garfin, D. R., & Silver, R. C. (2014). Media’s role in broadcasting acute stress following the Boston Marathon bombings. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 111, 93-98. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1316265110
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