Steven Beach

A smiling man with a graying beard and glasses, associated with the Center for Family Research, wearing a dark blazer over a light shirt.Steven R.H. Beach, Ph.D., is Regent’s Professor of Psychology at UGA and serves as associate director of CFR. His work integrates clinical, family, developmental, and biological perspectives to understand how close relationships, chronic stress, social disadvantage, and resilience influence health behavior, health, and healthy aging. A central goal of this research is to identify modifiable pathways through which supportive family and couple relationships can protect health, particularly among African American families living in economically and socially challenging contexts. 

Dr. Beach’s current research draws on long-term observational studies and randomized family-centered preventive interventions, including the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS) and Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF).These projects examine behavioral pathways such as tobacco and alcohol use, diet, and other health-related behaviors alongside inflammatory, cardiometabolic, gene-expression, and DNA-methylation indicators of biological aging. His work investigates how these processes contribute to cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk, accelerated aging, and later-life health disparities. 

Current projects also include an NIA-supported study of stress, weathering, and blood-based Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers among aging African Americans. This work examines how social and economic stressors, discrimination, lifestyle, chronic illness, and biological aging are associated with longitudinal trajectories of biomarkers relevant to Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. In complementary research, Dr. Beach and collaborators evaluate methylation-based biomarkers of smoking and alcohol exposure, including their associations with mortality and cancer-relevant health outcomes. Across these projects, his research seeks to identify actionable targets for prevention and relationship-based intervention that can promote healthier behavior, healthier aging, and reduced burden of cardiometabolic disease, dementia, and cancer.