# Biological and Psychosocial Mechanisms of Cancer Caregivers' Elevated Health Risk

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI CORAL GABLES · 2020 · $478,356

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Cancer affects not only those with the disease, but also their family members. Family caregivers are known to
have compromised health, as the detrimental impact of patients' cancer on their caregivers is substantial.
Studies have documented the patient's distress relates to the caregiver's poorer health and vice versa,
suggesting that cancer caregivers' health is an interpersonal, dyadic problem. Unknown are when and how the
dyadic, cross-over effects occur. Stress regulation among cancer caregivers and their patients is
interdependent, as is the caregiver-patient relationship itself. This dyadic stress regulation occurs when
members of a dyad mutually calm each other's stress reactions and dampen negative affect and physiological
arousal (coregulation) or mutually increasing those outcomes (coagitation). We propose that greater stress
coregulation protects against adverse health outcomes, whereas greater stress coagitation exacerbates them.
This project will examine dyadic stress regulation between cancer caregivers and their patients, and test
coregulation and coagitation as predictors of health outcomes. Coregulation/coagitation will be quantified by
cardiovascular (heart rate variability: HRV), neuroendocrine (salivary cortisol), and self-reported affective
reactivity and regulation, in response to a standardized stress situation that is relevant both to health and to
close relationships. We will then examine prospectively the extent to which the indicators of coregulation for
this discrete stressor relate to daily outcomes (mood, diurnal cortisol, and sleep) and interim health outcomes
(depressive symptoms, resting HRV, and healthcare visits), and the degree to which gender moderates such
effects. A total of 120 colorectal cancer (CRC) patients (60 male and 60 female) and their heterosexual
caregiver (120 dyads) will participate.
Understanding underlying biological and psycholgoical mechanisms is critical for identifying cancer caregivers
and their patients who are at most risk for poor health due to their mutual stress regulation patterns. Findings
of this project will be readily translated to development of novel interventions pertaining to effective and mutual
management of stress in daily life and dyadic influences on health promotion. Those interventions will aim
helping one another to better modulate and manage stress and optimizing beneficial effects of coregulation of
cancer-related stress on better health. These tailored-and-targeted interventions will help caregivers identify
when and how they should engage in stress self-management in the context of illness trajectory of their relative
with cancer. They will also aim at reducing premature morbidity and mortality, particularly related to
dysregulated cardiovascular, neuroendocrine, and immunologic systems, and psychological distress, among
persons touched by cancer and other chronic illness, thereby improving public health.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9750824
- **Project number:** 5R01NR016838-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI CORAL GABLES
- **Principal Investigator:** YOUNGMEE KIM
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $478,356
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-09-26 → 2022-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9750824

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9750824, Biological and Psychosocial Mechanisms of Cancer Caregivers' Elevated Health Risk (5R01NR016838-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9750824. Licensed CC0.

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