• Director, Behavioral Diabetes Research Group

• PhD, Human Development & Aging, University of California, San Francisco

• Sense of Control, Stress and Coping, Health Outcomes
• Social Disparities in Health
• Life Span Development
• As a life-span developmental psychologist, my research for the past 15 years has focused on three interrelated areas: 1) how stressful circumstances in people’s lives come to affect their mental and physical health; 2) people’s sense of control over their lives and how that is related to their health; and 3) how social class, ethnicity, and location in the life span are related to people’s stressors, sense of control, and health.

• Pearlin LI and Skaff MM. Stress and the life course: A Paradigmatic Alliance. The Gerontologist. Issue: 2. 36: 239-247, 1996.
• Skaff MM, Pearlin LI and Mullan JT. Transitions in the caregiving career: Effects on sense of mastery. Psychology and Aging. Issue: 2. 11: 247-257, 1996.
• Skaff MM, Chesla CA, Mycue VS and Fisher L. Lessons in cultural competence: Adapting research methodology for Latino participants. Journal of Community Psychology. 30: 305-323, 2002.
• Skaff MM, Mullan JT, Fisher L and Chesla CA. A contextual model of control beliefs, behavior, and health: Latino and European Americans with type 2 diabetes. Psychology &
• Skaff MM. (Forthcoming). Sense of Control & Health: A dynamic duo in the aging process. In R. Spiro, C. Parks, & C. Aldwin (Eds.), Handbook of health psychology and aging, Guilford.

Department of Family and Community Medicine
Parnassus Heights
Box 0900
500 Parnassus Avenue, MU3E
San Francisco, CA 94143-0900

ph 415-476-9131

skaffm@fcm.ucsf.edu