Joan Orrell-Valente, PhD
Joan K. Orrell-Valente, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics. She received a B.S. in Psychology and in Human Organizations and Development, and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with specialization in Developmental Psychopathology, from Vanderbilt University. Dr. Valente has also completed a clinical internship in pediatric and child clinical psychology at Children’s National Medical Center, Washington DC, and a postdoctoral fellowship in Adolescent Health at UCSF.
Dr. Valente is interested in understanding and addressing the social and psychological determinants of disparities in disease prevalence and treatment response in children and adolescents. Her research and clinical efforts center on parent/family influences on children’s and adolescents’ decision-making and behavior in two important health risk areas: obesity and sexual risk. Dr. Valente is currently the consulting psychologist on staff at the UCSF Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) Clinic and leads two ongoing research projects. One project is the investigation of sociodemographic factors (e.g., socioeconomic status, family stress, childhood stress, parents’ socialization of children’s eating and activity patterns, parental psychopathology, etc.) that may explain, in part, the development of the health behavioral patterns associated with obesity. A second project is the identification of the affective style, strategies, and substantive content of mother-daughter communication that are associated with prevention/reduction of adolescent sexual risk-taking.
Dr. Valente is particularly excited about her current study that is in development. She plans an intervention research project to prevent/reduce obesity that will target parents and families. This intervention will address key barriers to family/parent/child implementation of the lifestyle changes that remain the central feature of all healthy weight initiatives (and to which adherence rates remain very low). Most importantly, her objective is to design an intervention that can be effectively implemented in clinical as well as school and community settings, and that can be delivered to the groups most at risk.
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