Faculty Sponsor: Valerie L. Nazzaro
Live Poster Session: Zoom Link
Ahmad Alahmad
Ahmad Alahmad is a freshman at Wesleyan University from Syria, planning to major in Molecular Biology and double minor in Data Analysis and East Asian Studies. He loves studying languages and East Asian culture and politics, especially the Chinese sphere. He selected this course as a first step into statistics hoping to pursue a career in bio research and go further in grad studies.
Abstract: In this research, I looked into the question of whether optimism plays a role in cardiovascular health, as well as observing the magnitude of optimism. Since poor psychological conditions have been proven to weaken the body, I wanted to look more specifically into optimism, pessimism and cardiovascular health. Through the AddHealth survey, I sampled 4 questions related to individuals’ sense of optimism and made a composite score called ‘Optimism Score’. For cardiovascular disease, a few diseases were selected based on the scope of the survey. Overall, there is a correlation between optimism and cardiovascular health, the more, the less likely to attract disease. The goal of this research is to shed light on the mind-body connection.
QAC201