The Muruthi Lab, is committed to cultivating and encouraging an inclusive and collaborative work environment where members embrace all ideas regardless of background, beliefs, or experiences. We strive to promote diversity within a respectful lab environment as we believe this is key to collaboration and advancement in science.

Mental Health and LGBTQ Individuals

Study aimed to identify available social support and to determine social support characteristics associated with good socioemotional health among rural-dwelling LGBTQ individuals to increase understanding of the social support network of LGBTQ adults and their impacts on socioemotional health. This study will generate themes about effective health-related social support and their change-producing characteristics

Disaster Communication Grant

 Study to increase understanding of how information about the summer 2020 Oregon wildfires was communicated to, middle aged and older Latino migrants and seasonal farmworkers (MSFWs) and their community who may not be proficient in the English language. Study will pay particular attention to the impacts of English language-dominated disaster communication on MSFWs and add a unique contribution to the health communication, immigration, and social gerontology literature.

Perceptions of healthcare access among African American elders in gentrified neighborhoods of Portland, OR

This study will collect and analyze first-hand perceptions and experiences of healthcare access among older African Americans living in gentrified neighborhoods to gain a better understanding of how they perceive healthcare access in the face of gentrification. It will give insight into general perspectives of this population, and provide details regarding expected barriers to and facilitators of healthcare access from the perspective of the participants. 

Oregon Caregivers Grants

This project studies older caregivers living in Oregon and aims to identify the proportion and demographic characteristics of older (65 years and older) men and women caregivers to examine gender differences in health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among older Oregon caregivers.  This will help to understand the socio demographic profile of the Oregon caregiver population and leverage the positive benefits of ecological factors which may be useful to enhance health-related quality of life among older caregivers

Cross-Country Comparison of Depression

This study will look to identify factors predicting depression through symptom reporting amongst aging Chinese and Mexican older adults. It is indicated that functional health, health services satisfaction and aging are significant predictors of depressive symptoms in both China and Mexico.

Suicide Ideation Amongst Aging Ghanian Women  

This study examines the relationship between bodily pain, functional limitation, chronic health conditions, and suicidal ideation in older Ghanaian women. Poor subjective health, functional disability, and pain were independently and significantly associated with suicidal ideation in westernized cultures but few studies have focused on older adults in African countries.