scholarly journals Discrimination, Stress, and Health Across the Life Course

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 580-581
Author(s):  
Roland Thorpe ◽  
Carl Hill

Abstract There is a paucity of research that seeks to understand why race disparities in health across the life course remain elusive. Two such explanations that have been garnering attention is stress and discrimination. This symposium contains papers seeking to address the impact of discrimination or stress on African American health or health disparities across the life course. First, Nguyen and colleagues examine 1) the associations between discrimination and objective and subjective social isolation and 2) how these associations vary by age in using data from the National Survey of American Life. Discrimination was positively associated with being subjectively isolated from friends only and family only. This relationship varied by age. Discrimination did not predict objective isolation. Second, Brown examines evidence of the black-white paradox in anxiety and depressive symptoms among older adults using data from 6,019 adults ages 52+ from the 2006 HRS. After adjusting for socioeconomic factors, everyday discrimination, chronic conditions, and chronic stress, there are no black-white differences in anxiety and depressive symptoms. Third, Cobb and colleagues investigate the joint consequences of multiple dimensions of perceived discrimination on mortality risk using mortality data from the 2006-2016 HRS. The authors report the number of attributed reasons for everyday discrimination is a particularly salient risk factor for mortality in later life. This collection of papers provides insights into how discrimination or stress impacts African American health or health disparities in middle to late life.

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 189-190
Author(s):  
Roland Thorpe ◽  
Carl V Hill

Abstract There is a paucity of research that seeks to understand why race disparities in health across the life course remain elusive. Two such explanations that have been garnering attention is stress and discrimination. This symposium contains papers seeking to address the impact of discrimination or stress on African American health or health disparities across the life course. Brown and colleagues examine the differential effects of chronic stress exposure by means of latent class analysis on mental and physical health in the HRS. Analysis revealed four subgroups, each demonstrated a typological response pattern with the most pronounced health consequences for high stress exposure, appraisal and few or no coping mechanisms. This suggests an alternative approach to examining the stress-health link by using a combined person- and variable-centered approach. Thomas Tobin and colleagues evaluate the life course processes through which early life racial discrimination (ELRD) and racial centrality shape adult allostatic load (AL) among older Blacks in the Nashville Stress and Health Study. Findings indicate that racial centrality is protective against adult high AL for those who experienced racial discrimination as children or adolescents. Cobb and colleagues examine how multiple attributed reasons for everyday discrimination relates to all-cause mortality risk among older Blacks in HRS. The authors report the 3 or more attributed reasons for everyday discrimination is a particularly salient risk factor for mortality in later life. This collection of papers provides insights into how discrimination or stress impacts African American health or health disparities in middle to late life.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S191-S191
Author(s):  
Roland J Thorpe ◽  
Carl V Hill

Abstract There is a paucity of research that seeks to understand why race disparities in health across the life course remain elusive. Two such explanations that have been garnering attention is stress and discrimination. This symposium contains papers seeking to address the impact of discrimination or stress on health or health disparities across the life course. First, Brown and colleagues examine black-white differences in the number of reported chronic stressors across five domains their appraised stressfulness, and their varying associations with anxiety and depression among a diverse sample of older adults using data from 6,019 adults ages 52+ from the 2006 HRS. Race and appraisal interactions show that blacks and whites report similar increases in anxiety and depressive symptoms with appraisal. Second, Tobin and colleagues investigate the impact of early life racial discrimination (ELRD) on mental health among Black adults. Using data from 618 participants in the Nashville Stress and Health Study, these investigators found that childhood and adolescent ELRD were positively associated with adult distress. Also, individuals who experienced childhood ERLD had 88% lower odds of adult MDD than individuals with no ELRD. Cobb and colleagues examine the cross-sectional association between everyday discrimination and kidney function among older adults in HRS. The authors report that after adjusting for demographic characteristics, everyday discrimination was associated with lower mean eGFR. The relationship between everyday discrimination and kidney function was not explained by biospsychosocial factors. This collection of papers provides insights into how discrimination or stress impacts health in middle to late life.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Ruining Sun ◽  
Jason N. Houle

In this paper, we contribute to a growing literature on debt and mental health and ask whether patterns of unsecured debt accumulation and repayment over two decades are associated with depressive symptoms at age 50. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 Cohort and group trajectory models, we have three key findings. First, we find substantial heterogeneity in debt trajectories across the life course. Second, respondents who report consistently high debt levels across the life course or who cycle in and out of high debt report significantly more depressive symptoms than respondents who hold consistently low levels of debt. These findings hold for both absolute and relative (debt-to-income) debt. Third, we find that the association between debt and depressive symptoms is strongest among respondents with less than a college degree, but we find less evidence for heterogeneity by race in this cohort.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S128-S129
Author(s):  
Melanie S Hill ◽  
James E Hill ◽  
Stephanie Richardson ◽  
Jessica Brown ◽  
Jeremy B Yorgason ◽  
...  

Abstract Identity scholars have suggested that having a unified sense of past, present, and future is related to positive well-being outcomes (Whitbourne, Sneed & Skultety, 2009). One’s occupation can have a profound influence on an individual’s identity throughout the life course (Nazar & van der Heijden, 2012). Research has looked at career mobility among younger age groups (Baiyun, Ramkissoon, Greenwood, & Hoyte, 2018); however, less is known about the impact of career stability later in life. Consistency in career choice over the life course may have positive outcomes down the line as career becomes part of an individual's identity. The current study uses the Life and Family Legacies dataset, a longitudinal state-representative sample of 3,348, to examine individual’s careers at three points in the life course: high school (projected career choice), early adulthood, and later life. Results revealed that a match of desired career in high school and actual career in early adulthood was not predictive of life satisfaction or depressive symptoms in later life. However, a match of career in early adulthood and later life was significantly related to better life satisfaction and less depressive symptoms, which was explained through higher levels of job satisfaction. This study highlights the importance of acquiring and maintaining a career that is fulfilling to the individual over the course of early adulthood to later life.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 832-832
Author(s):  
Agus Surachman ◽  
Alexis Santos ◽  
Jonathan Daw ◽  
Lacy Alexander ◽  
Christopher Coe ◽  
...  

Abstract Age is a strong predictor of declines in kidney function across adulthood. Using data from 2,045 adults (ages 25-84) in the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study, we examined the life course pathways through which low parental education, through adult SES and body mass index (BMI), was associated with faster age-related declines in kidney function. Kidney function declines by 0.8 mL/min/1.73 m2 per year across adulthood. Lower parental education, through adult SES and BMI, was associated with higher kidney function among younger adults (Est = -1.61, SE = 0.62, 95%CI = -2.62, -0.60), but lower kidney function among older adults (Est = 0.93, SE = 0.51, 95%CI = 0.11, 1.79). The impact of early socioeconomic adversity on kidney function is initiated by kidney hyperfiltration in early adulthood and followed by faster declines and development into disease state in later adulthood.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Joseph Taylor ◽  
Reuben Miller ◽  
Dawne Mouzon ◽  
Verna M. Keith ◽  
Linda M. Chatters

The present study examined the impact of criminal justice contact on experiences of everyday discrimination among a national sample of African American men. African American men have a high likelihood of being the targets of major discrimination as well as experiencing disproportionate contact with the criminal justice system. Few studies, however, examine everyday discrimination (e.g., commonplace social encounters of unfair treatment) among this group. Using data from the National Survey of American Life, we provide a descriptive assessment of different types of everyday discrimination among African American men. Specifically, we examined differences in everyday discrimination among men who have never been arrested, those who have been arrested but not incarcerated, and men who have a previous history of criminal justice intervention categorized by type of incarceration experienced (i.e., reform school, detention, jail, or prison). Study findings indicated overall high levels of reported everyday discrimination, with increased likelihood and a greater number of experiences associated with more serious forms of criminal justice contact. However, in many instances, there were no or few differences in reported everyday discrimination for African American men with and without criminal justice contact, indicating comparable levels of exposure to experiences with unfair treatment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
R Castagné ◽  
M Chadeau-Hyam ◽  
M Karimi ◽  
S Stringhini ◽  
P Vineis ◽  
...  

Abstract Background This study explores (i) the relationship between socioeconomic position (SEP) across the life course and circulating C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of systemic inflammation, in 6 European cohort studies (in up to N = 23 008) participating in the Lifepath project and (ii) interrogate the hypothesis of a cumulative biological risk (allostatic load, AL) reflecting 4 physiological systems, including inflammation, potentially predicting future risk of death in one of the cohort. Methods First, we estimated the association between measures of three time point SEP and adulthood CRP, adjusting for health behaviours and body mass index (BMI). To mimic life course experiences, we sequentially adjusted for the chronologically ordered measures of SEP. Next we used mortality data from the 1958 British birth cohort to operationalise AL from 14 biomarkers collected at age 44. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression was used to estimate hazard ratios for the association between AL, biological sub-scores and individual biomarkers with mortality. Results Educational attainment was most strongly related to inflammation where low educational attainment was associated with higher log-transformed levels of CRP (β = 0.30, (0.22-0.38)). Higher AL at 44 years old was a significant predictor of mortality 11 years later (HR = 3.56 (2.3 to 5.53)). Among the four physiological systems, only the immune-inflammatory and cardiovascular sub-scores were significantly related to mortality. Conclusions Socioeconomic circumstances across the life course are associated with higher levels of inflammation in adulthood which in turn predict subsequent risk of death. But our findings also suggest that the cumulative AL measure consisting of all the biomarkers was a better measure for predicting death adding evidence on the biological embodiment in response to chronic stress, suggesting that social-to-biological processes are at play, beyond the impact of health behaviours and BMI.


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