Dr. Sampson studies the mental and physical health effects of stress, trauma, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder, especially as they relate to sleep, aging, and cardiovascular disease. She is interested in health effects of both individually-experienced trauma and collectively experienced trauma, including natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic. She has worked with several large, population-based studies including the Nurses' Health Study II, the World Mental Health Survey Initiative, the Ohio Army National Guard Mental Health Initiative, and the Puerto Rico Observational Study of Psychosocial, Environmental, and Chronic Disease Trends.