Robert Kerns

My interests are broadly in the area of health psychology and behavioral medicine. I am particularly interested in the integration of neurobiological and psychosocial models of the experience of chronic illness and associated disability and affective distress. I am also increasingly interested in the roles of the family and broader social context, as well as the role of social cognition, in the process of adaptation to chronic illness. An ongoing program of research focuses on the experience of chronic pain, with specific projects designed to evaluate predictors of outcome of psychological treatments, the relationship between pain and depression, pain-relevant social responding in the maintenance of pain and disability, and negative cognition and pain intensity. A second line of ongoing research focuses on the identification of affective distress and health risk behaviors in primary care medical settings and associations between these variables and medical outcomes and use of the health care system.