Kathleen M. Rospenda, PhD
Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry
BIRCWH Mentor
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About
Dr. Kathy Rospenda is Associate Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry and an Adjunct Member of the Graduate Faculty in UIC’s School Public Health. From 2018-2021, she was the Director of the Targeted Research Training Program in the Great Lakes Center for Occupational Health and Safety. She is an affiliate of the UIC Center for Healthy Work, a NIOSH-funded Center of Excellence for Total Worker Health®. Dr. Rospenda’s research centers on occupational stressors and their impact on mental health, physical health, and drinking behavior. She is a leading researcher in the area of workplace harassment. Primarily funded by the National Institutes of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism since 2002, Dr. Rospenda conducted the first representative national study of workplace harassment and discrimination, use of health and mental health services, and alcohol use/abuse, and the first study investigating the impact of harassment experiences at work and school on college student drinking behavior over time. She is currently conducting a follow-up study investigating the long-term effects of prior chronic exposure to sexual harassment and generalized workplace harassment on health, mental health, substance misuse, and mortality. She has also researched the impact of conflict between work and caregiving roles on mental health and drinking behavior in a community sample. She is currently a Co-Investigator on the Greater Lawndale Healthy Work Project, a community-based participatory research project to better understand how work impacts community health and to identify community solutions to promote worker health. Dr. Rospenda is also a Co-Investigator on a national survey project to identify the impact of chronic stressors on substance misuse among middle-aged adults.