Profile picture for user callcc@upmc.edu

Christine C. Call

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus

About Christine

Call's research focuses on food insecurity, eating behaviors, mental health, and their intersection, particularly during pregnancy and postpartum. Overarching themes in Call's writings include identifying barriers to health and wellbeing among under-resourced groups to inform behavioral and psychological interventions. Her work also focuses on promoting equity, cultural humility, and social justice in health science research, training, and intervention. Call serves on Scholars for Elevating Equity and Diversity, Pittsburgh's Food Justice Fund, and is an active member of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. As a clinical psychologist, she also provides mental health treatment in the community.

Contributions

What Mental Health Professionals Need to Know to Protect Their Patients and Themselves in the Post-Dobbs Era

  • Alexandra Tabachnick
  • Irene Tung
  • Stefanie L. Sequeira
  • Orma Ravindranath
  • Cassandra Boness
  • Debora Bell

Publications

"Measuring Food Security in University Students: A Comparison of the USDA 10-Item and Six-Item Food Security Survey Modules" (with Cassandra Boness, Sarita Cargas, and Kathryn E. Coakle). Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition (2024): 1-18.

Compares the identification of food insecurity in college students across two commonly used USDA assessments. Finds up to a 9% discrepancy in the identification of food insecurity depending on which measure was used, suggesting that improvements to current food insecurity measurement is needed for college settings.

"An Ethics and Social-Justice Approach to Collecting and Using Demographic Data for Psychological Researchers" (with Cassandra Boness, Kristen L. Eckstrand, Steven W. Kasparek, Lorraine Blatt, Nabila Jamal-Orozco, Derek M. Novacek, and Dan Foti). Perspectives on Psychological Science 18, no. 5 (2023): 979-995.

Reviews ethical and social-justice challenges that arise when collecting, analyzing and reporting on demographic data in research. Provides a framework positioned in ethics and social justice to help researchers in social-science fields and other key stakeholders make thoughtful decisions about the collection and use of demographic data.

"Disordered Eating During Pregnancy Among Individuals Participating in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)" (with Kelsey Magee, Rachel P.K. Conlon, Alison E. Hipwell, and Michele D. Levine). Eating Behaviors 49 (2023).

Examines symptoms of disordered eating among low income pregnant individuals participating in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Finds that relative to low income pregnant individuals who did not participate in WIC, WIC participants reported higher levels of disordered eating, indicating that WIC programming could be strengthened by specifically targeting eating pathology.