Michelle Roley-Roberts
West Virginia University, WV·Psychology
Anxiety is the most common mental health condition during pregnancy and after birth, more common than depression, yet it frequently goes untreated. Up to about one in ten mothers has clinically significant anxiety during pregnancy, and up to about one in six after delivery.
- Fields
Psychology
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
perinatal anxiety
postpartum anxiety
prenatal anxiety
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- Test in a randomized controlled trial with 100 at-risk pregnant women in rural West Virginia whether the online Preventing Postpartum Onset Distress program reduces prenatal anxiety and other postpartum anxiety risk factors more than an anxiety education control.
- Compare maternal anxiety symptoms, relationship quality with partners, and mother-infant relationships at eight weeks postpartum between women who completed the online couples program and those in the education control condition.
- Conduct qualitative interviews with about 25 mothers per condition, sampled to thematic saturation, to understand how the program shaped perinatal women's lives and what mechanisms explain differences in the quantitative outcomes.
More about the research
When untreated, perinatal anxiety is linked to preterm birth, impaired fetal development, low birthweight, trouble breastfeeding, anxiety later in the child, and strained bonding between parent and infant. Many mothers cannot easily reach care because of cost or distance, a problem that is sharpest in rural areas. This project tests whether a program delivered over the internet can prevent perinatal anxiety where in-person services are scarce.
Why it matters
Perinatal anxiety harms both mothers and infants and is often left untreated, particularly for women in rural areas who face distance and cost barriers to mental health care. If this trial shows that a self-guided online program for couples lowers anxiety and strengthens partner and infant relationships, it could offer a low-cost route to prevention that reaches mothers at home and helps narrow perinatal health disparities.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Lauren Osborne
Columbia University, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test whether the doula-delivered LHMoms program lowers postpartum depression, improves cardiovascular health and raises quality of life compared with an attention control, in a randomized trial of 450 patients at three New York City hospital sites.
Kara Zivin
University of Michigan, MI·Public Health & Epidemiology
Identify patient-level clinical characteristics linked to mental health care use, overall perinatal care and delivery outcomes among women with diagnosed PMAD, and estimate national and state disparities, using Medicaid and Optum insurance data.
Pervez Sultan
Stanford University, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test the feasibility and acceptability of Written Exposure Therapy, a five-session expressive writing treatment, and Capnometry Guided Respiratory Intervention, a home breathing program, in a randomized pilot trial of 60 postpartum patients with PTSD symptoms.
The school
West Virginia University: 15 labs on PI Pages, $259M a year on research, 201 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.