Alicia B Colvin

Contributions to Public Health

I am a psychiatric epidemiologist, and my research has primarily focused on the impact of the menopausal transition on mental health and quality of life outcomes. More recently, I have become involved in research examining the relationship between physical functioning and trajectories of lifestyle behaviors and psychosocial factors in women during midlife. My contributions to public health include:

• Family History and Major Depression in Midlife Women: Little is known about the role of family history of depression in the development of incident and recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD) in midlife women.  Through my work on the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), I found that family history of depression significantly predicts MDD in midlife women independent of the menopausal transition and changes in psychosocial and health profiles. 
  • Colvin A, Richardson GA, Cyranowski JM, Youk A, Bromberger JT. Does family history of depression predict major depression in midlife women? Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation Mental Health Study (SWAN MHS). Archives of Women’s Mental Health. 2014;17(4):269-278. PMID: 24952069 PMCID: PMC4120816
  • Colvin A, Richardson GA, Cyranowski JM, Youk A, Bromberger JT. The Role of Family History of Depression and the Menopausal Transition in the Development of Major Depression in Midlife Women: Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation Mental Health Study (SWAN MHS). Depression and Anxiety. 2017 May 10. doi: 10.1002/da.22651. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 28489293 PMCID: PMC5585035
• Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) during the Menopause: My work has focused on the evaluation of HRQoL in midlife women and factors that influence changes in HRQoL during menopause in the SWAN cohort.  We found that the odds of reduced role-physical functioning were significantly greater at late perimenopause and postmenopause compared with premenopause.  We also determined that vasomotor symptoms, urinary incontinence, poor sleep, arthritis, depressed mood, and stressful life events were significantly related to HRQoL across all domains of functioning. 
  • Avis NE, Colvin A, Bromberger JT, Hess R, Matthews KA, Ory M, Schocken M. Change in health-related quality of life over the menopausal transition in a multi-ethnic cohort of middle-aged women: Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN). Menopause. 2009;16(5):860-869. PMID: 19436224 PMCID: PMC2743857
  • Avis NE, Colvin A, Bromberger JT, Hess R. Midlife predictors of health-related quality of life in older women. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2018;00(00)1-7. PMID: 29596565
• Physical Function in Midlife Women: In SWAN, we demonstrated that women who consistently participated in high or moderate levels of physical activity during midlife had better performance on objective physical functioning measures than women with consistently low activity. We found that a subset of women show improvement in physical function during midlife. Those who improved reported better sleep, less financial strain, lower BMI, fewer medications, no osteoarthritis, more physical activity, and lower baseline physical component scores than those without improvement.
  • Pettee Gabriel K, Sternfeld B, Colvin A, Stewart A, Strotmeyer ES, Cauley JA, Dugan S, Karvonen-Gutierrez C. Physical Activity Trajectories during Midlife and Subsequent Risk of Physical Functioning Decline in Late Mid-life: The Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN). Preventive Medicine 2017; 105:287-294.
  • Santacroce LM, Avis NE, Colvin AB, Ruppert K, Karvonen-Gutierrez C, Solomon DH. Physical and Behavioral Factors Associated with Improvement in Physical Health and Function in Women During the Midlife. JAMA Network Open. 2023;6(5):e2311012. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.11012.