Clinical/Community Division

It is well known that human beings are deeply affected by caregiving relationships. The broad long term goal of the work of my collaborators and I is to impact public mental health agendas that effectively utilize caregiving relationships to promote wellness. Our program of research on caregiving emphasizes three goals:
1. The development of caregivng models that balance risk factors for mental health problems (e.g., hostility) with protective factors that are beneficial to those who receive care (e.g., support) by lowering risk for mental health problems and/or promoting wellness. In addition, we place an emphasis on developing models that take into account the mental health of those who receive care as well as the mental health of those who provide care (i.e., the caregivers).
2. Use of human ecological theories and models to understand the relationship between caregiving and mental health within ecological niches, that is, human relationship webs tied by cultural norms, local living conditions, and formal and informal support systems, for example.
3. The integration of scientific research with public mental health agendas. We are particularly interested in the development and promotion of interventions and service systems that are multiculturally proficient. In other words, our goal is to promote services that are effective in serving populations that have diverse cultural backgrounds.
Dr. Ramirez Garcia and his collaborators have worked with Latinos, primarily Mexican-American, caregivers of relatives with serious mental illness and parents of adolescents. Latinos continue to be under-represented in high quality mental health services and in mental health research. We have worked with samples of families on the U.S. - M*xico border, in Southern California, Chicago and surrounding suburbs, as well as in Central Illinois.
Dr. Ramirez Garcia*s work has been funded by an NIH Fogarty program, an NIH NRSA Award on Psychological Research in Schizophrenia Conditions, a Paso del Norte Health Foundation grant by the Center for Border Health Research in El Paso, TX, and an Arnold O. Beckman Award from the University of Illinois. Recently he received a Visiting Scholar Fellowship by the Center for Latino Family Research, Washington University in St. Louis. He served on an NIH charted steering committee on Adapting Interventions for Latino families and Children, and as a mentor in the Psychology Summer Institute of APA*s Minority Fellowship Program. His doctoral trainees have received Minority Fellowships by APA, APA dissertation awards, and Ford Foundation Fellowship awards.
Dr. Ramirez Garcia and his team of doctoral trainees are also committed to public service. They have conducted cultural and family therapy workshops for community agencies in central Illinois and the Chicago area, collaborated with mental health authorities and agencies in conducting needs assessments and program evaluations, family therapy services for traditionally underserved populations, and of Spanish speaking mental health services located in a primary health care agency, and on initiatives to promote academic achievement and fruitful parent-school relationships among Latino families.

Representative Publications:

• Ramirez Garcia, J. I., Hernandez, B., & Dorian, M. (2009). Mexican American caregivers' coping efficacy: Associations with caregivers' distress and positivity to their relatives with schizophrenia. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 44, 162-170.
• Lopez, S. R., Ramirez Garcia, J. I., Ullman, J. et al. (2009). Cultural variability in the manifestation of expressed emotion. Family Process, 48, 179-194.
• Magana, S., Ramirez Garcia, J. I., Hernandez, M., & Cortez, R. (2007). Psychological distress among Latino family caregivers of adults with schizophrenia: The roles of burden and stigma in the stress-process model. Psychiatric Services, 58, 378-384.
• Manongdo, J. M., & Ramirez Garcia, J. I. (2007). Mothers' parenting dimensions and adolescent externalizing and internalizing behaviors in a low-income, urban Mexican American sample. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 36, 593-604.
• Ramirez Garcia, J. I., Wood, J. M., Hosch, H. M., & D. Meyer, L. D. (2004). Predicting psychiatric rehospitalizations: Examining the role of Latino versus European American ethnicity. Psychological Services, 1, 147-157.

Classes Recently Taught:

• Ethnic Minority Families: Science & Practice (Practicum)
• Clinical Psychology & Mental Health Services Research (Grad Seminar)
• Spanish Speaking Mental Health Services (Practicum)