About

Carolyn Mazure is the Norma Weinberg Spungen and Joan Lebson Bildner Professor in Women's Health Research and a Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at Yale University. She earned her Ph.D. in 1980 from Penn State University/University Park. Dr. Mazure created and directs Yale's research program on health and gender, Women's Health Research at Yale, which initiates and supports innovative studies on women's health and translates findings into practice. Her own research focuses on the development of models for understanding depression and addictive disorders, with a special emphasis on gender-based analyses.

Research topics

• Psychiatry
• Internal medicine
• Medicine

Selected publications

• Diagnostic Yield and Clinical Utility of Coronary Angiography Versus Coronary Function Testing in Women With Angina and Nonobstructive Coronary Arteries

  Journal of the American Heart Association · 2024-09-18 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Background Approximately 50% of women referred for invasive coronary angiography have angina and nonobstructive coronary arteries, which includes coronary microvascular dysfunction, vasospastic angina, and other vasomotor disorders. We sought to determine the real‐world diagnostic yield of invasive coronary angiography and coronary function testing in women with angina and nonobstructive coronary arteries. Methods and Results From 2018 to 2023, we enrolled 198 women who underwent either coronary angiography (CA) alone (n=99) or coronary function testing (CFT; n=99). Mean±SD age was 62±10 years (CA alone) compared with 57±10 years (CFT). Coronary angiography was interpreted as nonobstructive coronary artery disease more frequently after CA alone (79% versus 52%). Of the women who underwent CFT, 82% (N=81) were found to have vasomotor disorders, including coronary microvascular dysfunction (27%), vasospastic angina (32%), mixed coronary microvascular dysfunction/vasospastic angina (16%), endothelial dysfunction (10%; without spasm), elevated resting flow (2%), or symptomatic myocardial bridging (4%). Compared with women undergoing CA alone, medications were changed more frequently after CFT at 24 hours (41% versus 65%; P =0.001) and between 24 hours and 30 days (30% versus 44%; P =0.04) with intensification of antianginal therapy (79% versus 92%; P< 0.0001) and increased use of calcium channel blockers (36% versus 63%; P< 0.0001). Conclusions Our findings demonstrate that women presenting with suspected ischemic heart disease undergoing CA alone only received an anatomic diagnosis, whereas >80% of women undergoing CFT received a specific diagnosis of a coronary vasomotor disorder and greater intensification of antianginal therapy.

  PublisherDOI

• Evaluating Ischemic Heart Disease in Women: Focus on Angina With Nonobstructive Coronary Arteries (ANOCA)

  Journal of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions · 2024-06-21 · 5 citations

  reviewOpen access

  Ischemic heart disease (IHD) is common in women, and cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. While obstructive coronary artery disease is the most common form of IHD, millions of women suffer from angina with nonobstructive coronary arteries (ANOCA), an umbrella term encompassing multiple nonatherosclerotic disorders of the coronary tree. The underlying pathology leading to ischemia in these syndromes may be challenging to diagnose, leaving many women without a diagnosis despite persistent symptoms that impact quality of life and adversely affect long-term cardiovascular prognosis. In the last decade, there have been significant advances in the recognition and diagnostic evaluation of ANOCA. Despite these advances, the standard approach to evaluating suspected IHD in women continues to focus predominantly on the assessment of atherosclerotic coronary artery disease, leading to missed opportunities to accurately diagnose and treat underlying coronary vasomotor disorders. The goal of this review is to describe advances in diagnostic testing that can be used to evaluate angina in women and present a pragmatic diagnostic algorithm to guide evaluation of ANOCA in symptomatic patients. The proposed approach for the assessment of ANOCA is consistent with prior expert consensus documents and guidelines but is predicated on the medical interview and pretest probability of disease to inform a personalized diagnostic strategy.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Associations of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Clusters and Pain Interference in Post-9/11 Veterans: Exploring Sleep Impairment and Physical Activity as Underlying Mechanisms

  International Journal of Behavioral Medicine · 2024-03-04

  article
  PublisherDOI

• The White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research

  JAMA Internal Medicine · 2024-09-30 · 7 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This Viewpoint explores the 2023 White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, which seeks to change how women’s health research is approached and funded to improve the lives of women and the health of the nation.

  PublisherDOI

• Physical activity, posttraumatic stress, and gender: A longitudinal study of post-9/11 veterans

  Journal of Health Psychology · 2024-02-23 · 3 citations

  article

  Given the importance of physical activity (PA) for both physical and mental health, the present study characterizes post-9/11 veterans' leisure-time PA engagement over time. Further, this study examines the relationship between PA and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), as well as whether this relation differs by gender and time since military discharge. This study was a secondary analysis of a 12-month longitudinal observational investigation of 410 (39.5% female) post-9/11 veterans. Participants completed self-report questionnaires at baseline and 12 months. Over a third of post-9/11 veterans were not engaging in any weekly leisure-time PA at study baseline and PA engagement significantly decreased in the subsequent year. The longitudinal relationship between PA and PTSS depended on both gender and time since military discharge. These results underscore the importance of considering both gender and time since discharge when tailoring interventions to support leisure-time PA as a key health habit in post-9/11 veterans.

  PublisherDOI

• Sex Differences in PTSD Among US Military Veterans

  The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry · 2024-12-16 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Mindfulness-based therapy for insomnia in Black women: a pilot randomized controlled trial

  Journal of Behavioral Medicine · 2024-09-21 · 7 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Pre- and peri-traumatic event stressors drive gender differences in chronic stress-related psychological sequelae: A prospective cohort study of COVID-19 frontline healthcare providers

  Journal of Psychiatric Research · 2023-04-20 · 5 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• The value of teaching the influence of sex and gender on health outcomes

  The Lancet Haematology · 2023-05-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Considerations of Sex and Gender in FDA Tobacco Regulation

  JAMA · 2023-05-26 · 14 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This Viewpoint discusses how sex and gender subpopulations may be differentially affected by tobacco products and suggests that the FDA formulate regulations in clinically meaningful ways.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant K12DA031050

  NIH · $2.5M · 2016

• NIH Grant K12DA014038

  NIH · $2.5M · 2007

• NIH Grant RL5DA024858

  NIH · $839k · 2013

• NIH Grant P50DA013334

  NIH · $13.3M · 2005

• NIH Grant R01MH052905

  NIH · $330k · 1998

Frequent coauthors

• Sherry A. McKee

  Yale University

  58 shared

• Rani A. Hoff

  VA Connecticut Healthcare System

  33 shared

• Andrea H. Weinberger

  Yeshiva University

  33 shared

• Robert H. Pietrzak

  United States Department of Veterans Affairs

  25 shared

• Paul K. Maciejewski

  Weill Cornell Medicine

  23 shared

• Malcolm B. Bowers

  22 shared

• Alexander Kretschmer

  Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

  20 shared

• Nife Olamide Adedeji

  Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex

  20 shared