Stephen Buka, ScD

Adjunct Associate Professor (Research)
Dept of Psychology
Brown University

Associate Professor
Maternal and Child Health
Associate Professor
Epidemiology
Harvard School of Public Health

Harvard School of Public Health
Center for the Study of Human Development
677 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
Phone: (617) 432-3870 or (401) 793-8060
Email: sbuka@HSPH.harvard.edu
Fax: (617) 432-3755

Stephen Buka, ScD, is an associate professor at Harvard School of Public Health and holds an adjunct faculty appointment at Brown University's Center for Studies on Human Development. He has conducted research in neuropsychology and psychiatric epidemiology for the past 15 years. He has combined graduate training in psychology and epidemiology at Harvard University, in addition to several years' work with adolescents with learning and emotional disorders. He has directed all of the recent follow-up efforts with the New England cohort of the National Collaborative Perinatal Project (n=2000), including four large-scale interview studies, two record-based studies, and several phone-questionnaire studies.

Nicotine Dependence: Risk & Recovery over Generations (TTURC:NEFS) uses a synergistic combination of a community-based sample, prospective design, and a multigenerational family study to examine the major pathways to nicotine dependence, and to develop and validate a lifespan taxonomy of tobacco use and nicotine dependence phenotypes. The major goal is to identify modifiable risk factors that can serve as targets for prevention and may be harnessed to enhance smoking prevention and cessation treatment success. We recognize that many such modifiable risk factors may act in concert with or against a substrate of genetic risks, and reason that a combined environmental and genetic/familial strategy is required both to clearly identify salient environmental agents and to prepare for studies of susceptibility genes.

This longitudinal study follows three generations originating from the National Collaborative Perinatal Project (NCPP), including:

Generation One (G-1): expectant mothers enrolled in NCPP.
Generation Two (G-2): children enrolled in NCPP from birth through age seven, now aged 36 - 43.
Generation Three (G-3): adolescent children of G-2 parents.

In Utero Exposure to Nicotine (S. Buka, PI) investigates the effects of in utero exposure to nicotine on the G-2's lifecourse (physical, social and psychological) and on the G-2's nicotine dependence.

Buka, S. L. (in press). Disparities in health status and substance use: Ethnicity and socioeconomic factors. Public Health Reports.

Buka, S. L., & Gilman, S. E. (2002). Psychopathology across the lifecourse. In J. E. Helzer (Ed.), Defining psychopathology in the 21^st century. Washington, DC: American Psychopathological Association.

Buka, S. L., Stichick, T. L., Birdthistle, I., & Earls, F. J. (2001). Youth exposure to violence: Prevalence, risks, and consequences. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 71, 298-310.

Buka, S. L., Tsuang, M. T., Torrey, E. F., Klebanof, M. A., Bernstein, D., & Yolken, R. H. (2001). Maternal infections and subsequent psychosis among offspring: A forty year prospective study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 58, 1032-1037.

Buka, S. L., Tsuang, M. T., Torrey, E. F., Klebanoff, M. A., Wagner, R. L., & Yolken, R. H. (2001). Maternal cytokine levels during pregnancy and adult psychosis. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 15, 411-420.

Gilman, S. E., Kawachi, I., Fitzmaurice, G. M., & Buka, S. L. (2002). Socioeconomic status in childhood and the lifetime risk of major depression. International Journal of Epidemiology, 31, 359-367.

Iwata, N., & Buka, S. L. (2002). Race/ethnicity and depressive symptoms: A cross-cultural/ethnic comparison among university students in East Asia, North and South America. Social Science and Medicine, 55, 2243-2252.

Molnar, B. E., Buka, S. L., & Berkman, L. (2001). Psychopathology, child sexual abuse, and other childhood adversities: Relative links to subsequent suicidal behavior in the U.S. Psychological Medicine, 31, 965-977.

Molnar, B. E., Buka, S. L., Brennan, R. T., Holton, J. K., & Earls, F. (in press). A multilevel study of neighborhoods and parent-to-child physical aggression: Results from the Project on Human Development in Chicago neighborhoods. Child Maltreatment.

Molnar, B. E., Buka, S. L., & Kessler, R. C. (2001). Child sexual abuse and subsequent psychopathology: Results from the National Comorbidity Survey. American Journal of Public Health, 91, 753-760.

Niaura, R. S., Bock, B. C., Lloyd, E. E., Brown, R., Lipsitt, L. P., & Buka, S. (2001). Maternal transmission of nicotine dependence: Psychiatric, neurocognitive, and prenatal factors. American Journal on Addictions, 10, 16-29.

Novak, S. P., Reardon, S., & Buka, S. L. (in press). How beliefs about substance use differ by neighborhoods. Journal of Drug Education.

Reardon, S. F., Brennan, R., & Buka, S. L. (in press). Estimating multi-level discrete-time hazard models using cross-sectional data: Neighborhood effects on the onset of adolescent cigarette use. Multivariate Behavioral Research.

Shenassa, E., Catlin, S., & Buka, S. L. (in press). Lethality of guns versus other suicide methods: A population based study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.