Marieke Van Willigen
Assistant Dean for Faculty Development, Harriot College of Arts and Sciences
Associate Professor
Ph.D., The Ohio State University 1997
Areas of Interest: Mental Health, Gender, Volunteering, Environmental Sociology
Office: Brewster A-406
Tel: 252.328.6092
E-mail: vanwilligenm@ecu.edu
Curriculum Vita
Research
Selected Publications and Papers:
“Environmental Stressors: The Mental Health Impacts of Living Near Industrial Activity.”Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 46: 289-305. Downey, Liam and Marieke Van Willigen (co-authors). September 2005.
"A Comparative Assessment of Impacts and Recovery from Hurricane Floyd among Student and Non-Student Households” Natural Hazards Review. Van Willigen, Marieke, Bob Edwards, Stephanie Lormand, Ken Wilson, and John Maiolo. 2005.
“The Race Gap in Support Group Participation: Real or Artifact?” Evaluation Review.28(2): 123-143 Michalec, Barret, Marieke Van Willigen, Kenneth Wilson, Ann Schreier, and Susan Williams. 2004.
“Riding Out the Storm: The Experiences of the Physically Disabled During Hurricanes Bonnie, Dennis, and Floyd.” Natural Hazards Review. Special Issue. 3(3): 98-106. Marieke Van Willigen, Bob Edwards, Terri Edwards, and Shaun Hessee. 2002.
"Benefits of Equitable Relationships: The Impact of Sense of Fairness, Household Division of Labor and Decision-Making on Social Support." Sex Roles. 44(9/10): 571-597. Van Willigen, Marieke and Patricia Drentea. 2001.
" Heading for Higher Ground: Factors Affecting Real and Hypothetical Hurricane Behavior.” Environmental Hazards Review. Whitehead, John, Bob Edwards, Marieke Van Willigen, John Maiolo, Ken Wilson, and Kevin Smith. 2001.
“Do Disasters Effect Individuals’ Psychological Well-Being?: An Over-Time Analysis of the Effect of Hurricane Floyd on Men and Women in Eastern North Carolina. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters. 19(1) 40-65.2001.
"Differential Benefits of Volunteering Across the Life Course" Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences. vol 55B, no 5. 2000, S1-S11.
"Education and the Subjective Quality of Life," Journal of Health and Social Behavior, vol. 38, no. 3, 1997, pp. 275-297 (with Catherine E. Ross).
"Women's Self-Help and the Reconstruction of Gender: The Postpartum Depression and Breast Cancer Movements," Mobilization, vol. 2, 1996, pp. 123-43 (with Verta Taylor).
"Gender, Parenthood, and Anger," Journal of Marriage and the Family, vol. 58, no. 3, 1996, pp. 572-584 (with Catherine E. Ross).
"Instrumentalism in the Land of Opportunity: Socioeconomic Causes and Emotional Consequences," Social Psychology Quarterly, vol. 59, no. 4, 1996, pp. 322-337 (with John Mirowsky and Catherine E. Ross).
Current Projects:
The Physical and Mental Health Impacts of Living near Industrial Activity: Previous research indicates that poor and minority residents are more likely to live near environmental pollution sources and to experience lower physical and psychological well-being. Dr. Liam Downey (Sociology; University of Colorado-Boulder) and I linked data on hazardous waste emissions with individual survey data on well-being. A first article entitled “Environmental Stressors: The Mental Health Impacts of Living Near Industrial Activity” finds living near industrial activity is associated with lower psychological well-being, particularly for poor and minority residents. This project was funded through the 2002 ASA/NSF Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline and the 2002 ECU Faculty Senate’s Research and Creative Activity Award to examine physical effects of living near industrial facilities. A second paper entitled "Environmental Inequality: Fact or Fiction?" tests whether hazardous waste is differentially distributed by race, ethnicity, and class.
Stigma, Discrimination, Social Support and Lesbian Mental Health: Kelly Giusto, a former graduate student, and I constructed an internet-based survey of lesbians in North Carolina which includes measures of mental health, experiences of discrimination, perceptions of stigma, and sources of social support (among many other things). Emails were sent to GLBT organizations across North Carolina asking them to forward information about the survey to their members. 203 women responded to the survey during the fall of 2004. The theoretical framework for the study was presented at the American Sociological Association in 2003: “Pearlin’s Stress Process Model, Stigma, and the Case of Lesbian mental Health”. The data are currently being analyzed for publication.
Quality of Life with Breast Cancer: In my 1996 article entitled "Women's Self-Help and the Reconstruction of Gender: The Postpartum Depression and Breast Cancer Movements" (coauthored with Verta Taylor) I examined the impact of activism by breast cancer survivors on their sense of themselves as women and on our conceptions of womanhood. In order to follow up on this research, with Susan Williams (Nursing), Ken Wilson (Sociology), and Ann Schreier (Nursing), I collected survey data from almost 1000 breast cancer survivors in Eastern North Carolina using the tumor registry at the Leo W. Jenkins Cancer Center as a sampling frame. The first wave of data collection on this project was funded by the ECU Faculty Senate Research and Creative Activities Grant program for Summer 2000 (Van Willigen (PI) and Schreier (PI)). This project aims to examine factors which affect the quality of life of long-term survivors of breast cancer over time. Two papers have been published entitled "The Race Gap in Support Group Participation by Breast Cancer Survivors: Real or Artifact?" and “. We are currently coding up deaths five years after the original data was collected and will soon look at predictors of survival.
My other research has examined the impact of volunteering on physical and psychological wellbeing, the affect of gender inequality in the family on quality of life, and the impacts of hurricanes on the well-being of residents of Eastern North Carolina.
