The Relational Wear and Tear of Everyday Racism Among African American Couples

The wear and tear of adapting to chronic stressors such as racism and discrimination can have detrimental effects on mental and physical health. Here, we investigate the wider implications of everyday racism for relationship quality in a sample of 98 heterosexual African American couples. Participants reported on their experiences of racial discrimination and positive and negative affect for 21 consecutive evenings. Using dyadic analyses, we show that independent of age, gender, marital status, income, racial discrimination frequency, neuroticism, and mean levels of affect, participants’ relationship quality was inversely associated with their partner’s negative affective reactivity to racial discrimination. Associations did not vary by gender, suggesting that the effects of affective reactivity were similar for men and women. These findings highlight the importance of a dyadic approach and call for further research examining the role of everyday racism as a key source of stress in the lives of African American couples.

How Immunosenescence and Inflammaging May Contribute to Hyperinflammatory Syndrome in COVID-19

Aging is characterized by the dynamic remodeling of the immune system designated “immunosenescence,” and is associated with altered hematopoiesis, thymic involution, and lifelong immune stimulation by multitudinous chronic stressors, including the cytomegalovirus (CMV). Such alterations may contribute to a lowered proportion of naïve T-cells and to reduced diversity of the T-cell repertoire. In the peripheral circulation, a shift occurs towards accumulations of T and B-cell populations with memory phenotypes, and to accumulation of putatively senescent and exhausted immune cells. The aging-related accumulations of functionally exhausted memory T lymphocytes, commonly secreting pro-inflammatory cytokines, together with mediators and factors of the innate immune system, are considered to contribute to the low-grade inflammation (inflammaging) often observed in elderly people. These senescent immune cells not only secrete inflammatory mediators, but are also able to negatively modulate their environments. In this review, we give a short summary of the ways that immunosenescence, inflammaging, and CMV infection may cause insufficient immune responses, contribute to the establishment of the hyperinflammatory syndrome and impact the severity of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in elderly people.

Is the Association Between Education and Sympathovagal Balance Mediated by Chronic Stressors?

Background This study investigated whether raised chronic stress in low education groups contributes to education differences in cardiovascular disease by altering sympathovagal balance. Methods This study included cross-sectional data of 10,202 participants from the multi-ethnic, population-based HELIUS-study. Sympathovagal balance was measured by baroreflex sensitivity (BRS), the standard deviation of the inter-beat interval (SDNN) and the root mean square of successive differences between normal heartbeats (RMSSD). The associations between chronic stressors (work, home, psychiatric, financial, negative life events, lack of job control and perceived discrimination) in a variety of domains and BRS, SDNN and RMSSD were assessed using linear regression, adjusted for age, ethnicity, waist-to-hip ratio and pack-years smoked. Mediation analysis was used to assess the contribution of chronic stress to the association between education and sympathovagal balance. Results Modest but significant associations were observed between financial stress and BRS and SDNN in women, but not in RMSSD nor for any outcome measure in men. Women with the highest category of financial stress had 0.55% lower BRS (ms/mmHg; β = -0.055; CI = -0.098, -0.011) and 0.61% lower SDNN (ms; β = -0.061; CI = -0.099, -0.024) than those in the lowest category. Financial stress in women contributed 7.1% to the association between education and BRS, and 13.8% to the association between education and SDNN. Conclusion No evidence was found for the hypothesized pathway in which sympathovagal balance is altered by chronic stress, except for a small contribution of financial stress in women.

Racial Incivility in Everyday Life: A Conceptual Framework for Linking Process, Person, and Context

Psychologists use the term racial microaggressions to describe subtle forms of everyday racial incivility and discrimination reported by members of historically underrepresented groups. Growing evidence links self-reported experiences of racial microaggressions to health. Drawing on life-course perspectives on stress, biopsychosocial models of racism, and daily-process research, I propose a conceptual framework for investigating daily stress processes (e.g., reactivity, recovery, appraisal, coping), cumulative stressor exposures (e.g., race-related traumas, major life events, nonevents, chronic stressors), and social structural factors (e.g., institutions, social roles, statuses) that may affect the experience of racial microaggressions in everyday life. An underlying assumption is that microaggressions are dynamic in character, can vary across individuals, and are shaped by the interplay of stressor exposures across multiple timescales and levels of analysis. The article concludes by inviting researchers to use methods that account for dynamic features of everyday racialized experiences, giving sufficient attention to process, person, and context.

Reproductive Rates of Merino Ewes and Offspring Quality under AI Program

Reproductive wastage is a major economic burden in sheep production globally, especially within Australia as livestock production systems face increased pressure from climatic variability (e.g. prolonged droughts or flooding). Sheep are sensitive to acute changes in their environment such as heat stress, which if not adequately monitored will result in significant production losses such as reproductive failure, increased parasite and worm burden, morbidity and mortality risks. Through basic and applied research in the areas of stress and reproductive physiology our team has made significant advancements in the understanding of sheep behaviour and physiological responses to acute and chronic stressors. Using minimally invasive hormone monitoring technology in combination with field based assessment of sheep health and productivity traits, our team has delivered new knowledge on how sheep react to acute environmental stress and how it impacts on sheep reproduction. In this chapter, we evaluated the fertility rates and embryo quality of Merino ewes under AI breeding program. We discuss factors such as heat stress that can impact on ewe and offspring quality.

Digital Biomarkers of Physical Frailty and Frailty Phenotypes Using Sensor-Based Physical Activity and Machine Learning

Remote monitoring of physical frailty is important to personalize care for slowing down the frailty process and/or for the healthy recovery of older adults following acute or chronic stressors. Taking the Fried frailty criteria as a reference to determine physical frailty and frailty phenotypes (slowness, weakness, exhaustion, inactivity), this study aimed to explore the benefit of machine learning to determine the least number of digital biomarkers of physical frailty measurable from a pendant sensor during activities of daily living. Two hundred and fifty-nine older adults were classified into robust or pre-frail/frail groups based on the physical frailty assessments by the Fried frailty criteria. All participants wore a pendant sensor at the sternum level for 48 h. Of seventeen sensor-derived features extracted from a pendant sensor, fourteen significant features were used for machine learning based on logistic regression modeling and a recursive feature elimination technique incorporating bootstrapping. The combination of percentage time standing, percentage time walking, walking cadence, and longest walking bout were identified as optimal digital biomarkers of physical frailty and frailty phenotypes. These findings suggest that a combination of sensor-measured exhaustion, inactivity, and speed have potential to screen and monitor people for physical frailty and frailty phenotypes.

Racial Incivility in Everyday Life: A Conceptual Framework for Linking Process, Person, and Context

Psychologists use the term racial microaggressions to describe subtle forms of everyday racial incivility and discrimination reported by members of historically underrepresented groups. Growing evidence links self-reported experiences of racial microaggressions to health. Drawing on life-course perspectives on stress, biopsychosocial models of racism, and daily process research, I propose a conceptual framework for investigating daily stress processes (e.g., reactivity, recovery, appraisal, coping), cumulative stressor exposures (e.g., race-related traumas, major life events, nonevents, chronic stressors), and social structural factors (e.g., institutions, social roles, statuses) that may impact the experience of racial microaggressions in everyday life. An underlying assumption is that microaggressions are dynamic in character, can vary across individuals, and are shaped by the interplay of stressor exposures across multiple timescales and levels of analysis. The article concludes by issuing an invitation to researchers to employ methods that account for dynamic features of everyday racialized experiences, giving sufficient attention to process, person, and context.

How Early Life Stress Effects Telomeres in Later Life

Telomere length is associated with chronic stressors in adulthood and early adversity. Stress over the lifespan is thought to promote the accelerated aging and illness in early life.

Rapid Population Decline of the Pillar Coral Dendrogyra cylindrus Along the Florida Reef Tract

Coral reefs worldwide are in a state of decline, but the population status and impacts of stressors for rare species are generally not well documented using broad-scale monitoring protocols. We fate-tracked all known colonies of the pillar coral, Dendrogyra cylindrus, on the Florida Reef Tract (FRT) from 2013 to 2020 to assess population condition and trend, and to document the relative impacts of chronic and acute stressors. Large average colony size, an absence of juveniles, and large geographic distances between genotypes suggest that the Florida D. cylindrus population has been reproductively extinct for decades. During the study period, low-intensity chronic stressors were balanced by regrowth, while back-to-back years of coral bleaching and thermally-exacerbated disease led to declines that the subsequent recovery rates suggest would require 11 uninterrupted years to overcome. The most recent stressor on Florida’s D. cylindrus population is “stony coral tissue loss disease” (SCTLD). Following the appearance of the disease in Florida in 2014, unrecoverable losses occurred within the D. cylindrus population as tissue, colonies, and whole genotypes suffered complete mortality. Losses of 94% of coral tissue, 93% of colonies, and 86% of genotypes between 2014 and the end of 2020 have led to functional extinction of D. cylindrus on the FRT.