Brian Baucom

About

Brian Baucom, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah and serves as the Director of Clinical Training. His research focuses on understanding how partners in committed, romantic relationships interact to promote or inhibit their well-being, stability, and individual physical and mental health. He conducts both basic and applied research with an emphasis on couples and families coping with psychological distress, psychopathology, and chronic health conditions. His work integrates multiple assessment modalities, including self-report, daily diary, psychophysiology, cognitive performance tasks, observational coding, speech signal processing, and natural language processing. Dr. Baucom has received funding from various national and international agencies, including the Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Justice, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Israeli Science Foundation, and Apple. His clinical interests are centered on increasing access to empirically supported psychotherapies, especially for underserved populations. He co-directs the Behavioral Health Innovation and Dissemination Center, which offers low-fee, evidence-based psychotherapies to individuals and couples, and trains graduate students, psychiatry residents, and fellows in providing these therapies. His research group is involved in interdisciplinary projects examining couple and family-based…

Research topics

• Psychology
• Clinical psychology
• Psychiatry
• Social psychology
• Medical education
• Applied psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Cognitive psychology
• Medicine
• Neuroscience

Selected publications

• Bots and nots: safeguarding online survey research with underrepresented and diverse populations

  Psychology and Sexuality · 2021 · 89 citations

  The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the use of online recruitment and data collection for reaching historically underrepresented minorities (URMs) and other diverse groups. Preventing and detecting responses from automated accounts "bots" and those who misrepresent themselves is one challenge in utilizing online approaches. Through internet-mediated methods, interested LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ couples facing advanced cancer completed an interest form via REDCap®. Eligible participants received a…

  DOI

• Toward a social psychophysiology of vagally mediated heart rate variability: Concepts and methods in self‐regulation, emotion, and interpersonal processes

  Social and Personality Psychology Compass · 2020 · 85 citations

  Abstract Theory and research on self‐regulation, emotional adjustment, and interpersonal processes focus increasingly on parasympathetic functioning, using measures of vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) or respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). This review describes models of vmHRV in these areas, and issues in measurement and analysis. We propose a framework organizing theory and research as examining (a) vmHRV as an individual difference or a situational response, and (b) resting, re…

  DOI

• The Binge Eating Genetics Initiative (BEGIN): study protocol

  BMC Psychiatry · 2020 · 43 citations

  BACKGROUND: The Binge Eating Genetics Initiative (BEGIN) is a multipronged investigation examining the interplay of genomic, gut microbiota, and behavioral factors in bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder. METHODS: 1000 individuals who meet current diagnostic criteria for bulimia nervosa or binge-eating disorder are being recruited to collect saliva samples for genotyping, fecal sampling for microbiota characterization, and recording of 30 days of passive data and behavioral phenotyping rela…

  DOI

• Rationale and study protocol for We-PAP: a randomized pilot/feasibility trial of a couples-based intervention to promote PAP adherence and sleep health compared to an educational control

  Pilot and Feasibility Studies · 2022-08-06 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a serious health condition that affects approximately 30-50% of older adults and contributes to risk for cardiometabolic disorders and dementia. Despite the well-documented role of partners in treatment seeking and adherence to positive airway pressure (PAP), treatments for OSA have nearly exclusively focused on the patient and current treatments for OSA do not address co-existing sleep problems such as insomnia that are prevalent in both patients wit…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Parenting Concerns, Psychological Distress, and Relationship Adjustment Among Patients With Cancer and Their Partners: A Longitudinal Study

  Psycho-Oncology · 2025-01-01 · 7 citations

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVE: Studies have found that cancer patients with dependent children exhibit high symptoms of anxiety, depression, and worry. Patients' parenting concerns can negatively impact their own and their family's adjustment to the cancer experience. However, relatively little is known about parenting concerns of partners of cancer patients, or associations between parenting concerns and couples' relationship adjustment. This longitudinal study investigated parenting concerns among both patients a…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant F32HD060410

  NIH · $118k · 2013

Frequent coauthors

• Panayiotis Georgiou

  Apple (United Kingdom)

  53 shared

• Shrikanth Narayanan

  33 shared

• Cynthia M. Bulik

  Karolinska Institutet

  23 shared

• Donald H. Baucom

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  18 shared

• Melanie S. Fischer

  Heidelberg University

  18 shared

• Jonathan Butner

  University of Utah

  17 shared

• Alexander O. Crenshaw

  Kennesaw State University

  15 shared

• David C. Atkins

  15 shared

Labs

• Behavioral Medicine Research GroupPI

  Engage with a dynamic interdisciplinary group of researchers including core Health Psychology faculty, affiliated faculty in the U of U Medical Center, and health-focused graduate students across all areas of the department.

Similar researchers at University of Utah

• Bruce J. Ellish-51
• Lisa G. Aspinwallh-43