ECU psychology professor honored with Best Paper award

Dr. Heather Littleton, associate professor in the Department of Psychology at East Carolina University, received the 2013 Georgia Babladelis Best Paper award by the Psychology of Women Quarterly for her co-authored paper, “Health Risk Behavior and Sexual Assault Among Ethnically Diverse Women.”

Littleton

The award honors the best paper published for the year. The award-winning article will be featured as the lead article in the March 2013 issue of the journal and comes with a $1,000 honorarium. Littleton will be recognized for the award at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association.

Littleton’s paper examines the extent to which an association between sexual victimization history and engaging in health risk behaviors is mediated by sexual violence victims’ greater vulnerability to depressive and anxiety symptoms. This association was evaluated among European American, African American, Latina and Asian American women, and differences in the size of this relationship were compared. Implications of the findings for understanding sexual violence risk and health risk behaviors among diverse women are discussed.

Co-authors are Dr. Amie Grills-Taquechel, associate professor at the University of Houston, and three doctoral clinical health psychology students in Littleton’s lab. The doctoral students are Katherine Buck, Julia Dodd and Lindsey Rosman.

For additional information, contact Littleton at 252-328-6488 or littletonh@ecu.edu.