Researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington are developing a new way to measure stress in real time, combining smartphone surveys, wearable technology and laboratory testing to better understand how everyday experiences affect the body and potentially impact heart health.
“A lot of studies have investigated the relationship between stress experiences and cardiovascular risk. But most focus on either lifetime exposure to stressful events or a person’s recall of their usual exposure,” said Yue Liao, an associate professor of kinesiology who is leading the study. “New measures are needed to better capture people’s daily experiences, which can be very different from traditional measures of stress.”
The project is supported by a five-year, $3.82 million grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.
Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the U.S. In 2023, more than 919,000 people died from it, accounting for one in every three deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. High blood pressure, which affects nearly half of U.S. adults, is among the most significant risk factors for heart disease and stroke.
The study will first develop a new survey tool designed to capture people’s day-to-day experiences with stress, including their immediate reactions and coping strategies. Researchers will implement a methodology known as item response theory, allowing the survey to be tailored to participants' demographic and personal characteristics to improve measurement accuracy.
Once this measure is established, the team will recruit participants who will be monitored for 14 days. Participants will complete brief daily surveys on their smartphones while wearing devices that track physiological responses such as heart rate.
Researchers will then compare those real-world measurements with participants’ responses to stress-inducing tasks conducted in a laboratory setting.
“Our study is really focusing on day-to-day experiences,” said Dr. Liao, who directs UTA’s Physical Activity and Wearable Sensors Lab. “The idea is to capture in-the-moment experiences of stress, perceptions, feelings, social environments and related factors that will allow us to get snapshots of people’s experiences.”
She hopes the research will reveal how daily social experiences and behaviors influence physiological responses and help researchers develop more targeted strategies to reduce cardiovascular risk.
The multidisciplinary team includes coinvestigators Rebecca Lee, a community health psychologist at Arizona State University, and Salene Jones, a clinical psychologist at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center. Paul Fadel, associate dean for research at UTA, and Daisha Cipher, a biostatistician and nursing professor at UTA, are also part of the research team.
The project will also establish a six-member community advisory board representing the study population.