Dr. Laura Bechtiger is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Risk & Resilience research area of the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development led by Prof. Lilly Shanahan. Laura’s research focuses on understanding and describing developmental processes and trajectories of individual differences in mental health and other disadvantages, including intergenerational patterns of (dis-)continuities in psychological and behavioral tendencies.
Previously, she received her Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, and PhD in Psychology from the University of Zurich, and also studied at the University of Padova, Italy. Laura is a graduate of the Max Planck International Research School on the Life Course (LIFE). In her doctoral dissertation, she examined links between maternal mental health and adolescent well-being in academic, (mental) health, and social domains. In all her current and previous research, Laura is working with data from multiple population-based prospective-longitudinal cohort studies and gained experience with various longitudinal data analysis methods.
Together with her colleagues, Laura is coordinating the R Peer Mentoring Group, a self-initiated group that aims to connect early-career researchers who use the software R for statistical analyses by organizing statistical workshops with experts, career talks, and social get-togethers (see more information here www.jacobscenter.uzh.ch/en/events/ecr/r-group.html).
Research focus:
- Risk factors for and sequelae of common mental health problems
- Population-based prospective-longitudinal cohort data
- Parental mental health and intergenerational processes of developmental psychopathology
- Social relationships, including peer and family relationships
Publications
ZORA Publication List
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Publications
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Self‐Injury and Domestic Violence in Young Adults During the COVID‐19 Pandemic: Trajectories, Precursors, and Correlates. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 31(3):560-575.
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Developmental Associations Between Sympathy and Mutual Disclosure in Friendships From Mid‐Adolescence to Early Adulthood. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 31(2):368-383.
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Attitudes Toward COVID-19 Vaccination Among Young Adults in Zurich, Switzerland, September 2020. International Journal of Public Health, 66:643486.
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Prevalence and Childhood Precursors of Opioid Use in the Early Decades of Life. JAMA Pediatrics, 175(3):276-285.
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Non-compliance with COVID-19-related public health measures among young adults in Switzerland: Insights from a longitudinal cohort study. Social Science & Medicine, 268:113370.
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Stressful life events in different social contexts are associated with self-injury from early adolescence to early adulthood. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11:487200.
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Subtypes of stuttering determined by latent class analysis in two Swiss epidemiological surveys. PLoS ONE, 13(8):e0198450.