

McGuinn Hall 302
Telephone: 617-552-4043
Email: maria.pinerosleano@bc.edu
Maternal and child mental and physical health; risk factors of maternal depression and mood disorders; social-contextual antecedents to childhood obesity; and prevention trials for childhood obesity
Assistant Professor María Piñeros-Leaño, PhD, MSW, MPH, joined the School of Social Work in 2018. She obtained her PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was an Illinois Transdisciplinary Obesity Prevention Program Fellow. Her research focuses on understanding the links between maternal mental health and child health. Specifically, her current research explores the role that maternal depression has on the development of childhood obesity among minority groups. She also does extensive research on culturally-adapted interventions to work with Latinx populations.
Dr. Piñeros-Leaño’s most recent work explores the effects that maternal depression has on childhood obesity using secondary data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. She has also investigated feeding choices and practices among first generation Latina mothers. She conducted in-depth interviews with 30 participants to understand how feeding practices changed before and after migration to the United States. Dr. Piñeros-Leaño is also a co-PI in a transnational study between the United States and Mexico that investigates the repercussions of acculturation on body composition among mothers and children.
Pineros-Leano, M., Grafft, N. (2021). Racial and ethnic disparities in childhood growth trajectories. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.
Pineros-Leano, M., Yao, L., Simonovich, S. D., Piñeros-Leaño, N., Huang, H. (2021). “I don't have time to be sad": Experiences and perceptions of sadness among Latina mothers. Social Work.
Pineros-Leano, M., Saltzman, J. A., Aguayo, L., Liechty, J. M., Musaad, S. (2021). Maternal depressive symptoms and their association with breastfeeding and child weight outcomes. Children. https://doi.org/10.3390/children8030233
Pineros-Leano M., Yao, L., Yousuf, A., Oliveira, G. (2021). Depressive Symptoms and Emotional Distress of Transnational Mothers: A Scoping Review. Frontiers in Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.574100
Pineros-Leano, M. (2020). Association Between Early Maternal Depression and Child Growth: A Group-Based Trajectory Modeling Analysis. Childhood Obesity, 16(1), 26-33. doi: https://doi.org/10.1089/chi.2019.0121
Pineros-Leano, M., Tabb, K., Liechty, J., Castañeda, Y., & Williams, M. (2019). Feeding decision-making among first generation Latinas living in non- metropolitan and small metro areas. PloS One, 14(3), e0213442, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0213442
Pineros-Leano, M., Tabb, K., Simonovich, S. D., Wang, Y., Meline, B., Huang, H. (2018). Racial differences in breastfeeding initiation among WIC participants in a Midwestern public health district. Health Equity, 2:1, 296-303. doi: https://doi.org/10.1089/heq.2018.0016
Pineros-Leano, M., Liechty, J. M., & Piedra, L. (2017). Latino immigrants, depressive symptoms, and cognitive behavioral therapy: A systematic review. Journal of Affective Disorders, 208, 567–576. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2016.10.025
Pineros-Leano, M., Tabb, K. M., Sears, H., Meline, B., & Huang, H. (2015). Clinic staff attitudes towards the use of mHealth technology to conduct perinatal depression screenings: A qualitative study. Family Practice, 32(2), 211-215. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/fampra/cmu083
Schiller Institute Grants for Exploratory Collaborative Scholarship (SIGECS). Developing Culturally-Tailored Interventions to Overcome Genomic Health Disparities in Communities of Color. 2021. Role: Co-Principal Investigator
Training Grant Recipient. William T. Grant Advanced Quantitative and Computational (AQC) Scholars Program. Institute in Critical Quantitative, Computational, and Mixed-Methodologies (ICQCM). Competitive 2-year expenses-paid training grant.
Latino 30 Under 30. El Mundo, Boston, MA.
Outstanding Social Work Doctoral Dissertation Award Honorable Mention. 2019 Society for Social Work and Research, San Francisco, California