RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND THE WEATHERING OF NONMARITAL RELATIONSHIPS.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of perceived racial discrimination on the satisfaction and dissolution of different-gender, nonmarital relationships among African American young adults. Background: Racial discrimination has proven detrimental to relationship quality among married couples. Racial disparities in relationship processes begin long before marriages form, however. Racial discrimination may also weather and disrupt nonmarital relationships earlier in the life course. Method: Survey data from African American young adult couples (N = 407) from the Family and Community Health Study were used to assess the associations between each partner's experience of racial discrimination, relationship satisfaction, and relationship dissolution using structural equation modeling. Results: Results support a stress spillover perspective in that racial discrimination experienced by both men and women increased the likelihood of relationship dissolution through reduced satisfaction. No support was found for a stress buffering perspective. Conclusion: Racial discrimination appears to distress and, ultimately, disrupt nonmarital relationships among African American young adult couples. Implications: Given the role of relationship quality and stability in promoting health and well-being, understanding how discrimination impacts the unfolding of relationships, or linked lives, across the life course is essential to untangling and addressing the "chains of disadvantage" identified by Umberson et al. (2014) as central to racial disparities in health and well-being.

Racial discrimination and health among two generations of African American couples.

The current study extends research on the detrimental health implications of racial discrimination by examining how these implications reverberate across romantic relationships. Using two generations of different-gender romantic couples from the Family and Community Health Study, we examined how racial discrimination experienced by a romantic partner was associated with poor health among Black adults, independent of one's own level of racial discrimination. Results from the actor-partner interdependence model showed that beyond the effects of socioeconomic status, health behavior, relationship satisfaction, and own experiences of racial discrimination, a romantic partner's experiences of discrimination were associated with increased psychological distress for both the middle/older-age generation and the young-adult generation. Further, in the middle/older-age generation, partners' experiences of racial discrimination were associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk, particularly for men. These results reiterate recent findings that researchers may underestimate the impact of racial discrimination on health when we fail to consider linked lives. Further, they indicate that there may be gender and generational differences in the individual and relational implications of racial discrimination on health.

Testing Life Course Models Whereby Juvenile and Adult Adversity Combine to Influence Speed of Biological Aging.

The present study extends prior research on the links between social adversity and aging by employing more comprehensive measures of adversity and a new gene expression index of aging. Hierarchical regression and 20 years of data from a sample of 381 black Americans were used to test models regarding the impact of social adversity on speed of aging. Consistent with the early life sensitivity model, early adversity continued to predict accelerated aging after controlling for adult adversity. Contrary to the pathway model, adult adversity was not related to aging following controls for early adversity. The cumulative stress model received partial support as high adversity during adulthood amplified the effect of early adversity on aging. Finally, consonant with the social change model, low adversity during adulthood buffered the effect of early adversity on aging. These findings held after controlling for health behaviors such as smoking, diet, and exercise.

Perceived relationship support moderates the association of contextual stress with inflammation among African Americans.

We followed 402 African American young adults from ages 24 to 29, a period of emerging committed relationships, to examine the association of contextual stress (CS), for example, experiences of financial strain, victimization, and racial discrimination, with inflammation, and to test predictions that greater perceived relationship warmth and support (PRWS) at age 29 would moderate the association between earlier CS and inflammation, using a multiplex assessment of cytokines to construct an index of the ratio between predominantly proinflammatory cytokines versus predominantly anti-inflammatory cytokines. CS experienced at age 24 was associated with greater inflammation at age 29 in the full sample (b = .112, p = .004). PRWS at age 29 moderated the association of earlier CS with inflammation (b = -.114, p = .011), but there was no significant main effect of PRWS (b = -.053, p = .265). Finally, using an internal moderator approach, we compared the association of CS with inflammation among those not in a committed relationship to those in more or less supportive relationships, showing a significant and stronger association of CS with inflammation for those with low PRWS (-1 SD; b = .182, p < .001), a weaker and nonsignificant association of CS with inflammation among those with higher PRWS (+1 SD; b = -.002, p = .975), and an intermediate and nonsignificant association of CS with inflammation among those with no committed romantic relationship (b = .077, p = .227). Results were robust to number of cytokines included in the inflammation index. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Discrimination, segregation, and chronic inflammation: Testing the weathering explanation for the poor health of Black Americans.

Several studies have reported a relation between race-related stressors and the poor health of Black Americans. Such findings raise questions regarding the mediating biological mechanisms that might account for this link. The present study investigated elevated systemic inflammation, a factor shown to be a strong predictor of chronic illness and mortality in all ethnic populations, as a possible factor. Using 7 waves of data from the Family and Community Health Study, collected over a 20-year period from over 400 Black Americans, we investigated the extent to which exposure to discrimination and segregation at various points in the life course predicted adult inflammation at age 28. Our analyses examined whether cumulative stress, stress generation, or predictive adaptive response (PAR) models best accounted for any associations that existed between these race-related stressors and adult inflammation. At every wave of data collection, assessments of discrimination and segregation were related to adult inflammation. However, multivariate analyses using structure equation modeling indicated that the PAR model best explained the effect of these race-related stressors on inflammation. Exposure to discrimination and segregation during the juvenile years predicted adult inflammation and amplified the inflammatory effect of adult exposure to these race-related stressors. These effects were considerably more robust than that of traditional health risk factors such as diet, exercise, smoking, and low SES. Implications of these findings are discussed, including the limitations of the widely accepted risk factor approach to increasing the health of Black Americans. (PsycINFO Database Record

An index of the ratio of inflammatory to antiviral cell types mediates the effects of social adversity and age on chronic illness.

BACKGROUND: It is assumed that both social stress and chronological age increase the risk of chronic illness, in part, through their effect on systemic inflammation. Unfortunately, observational studies usually employ single-marker measures of inflammation (e.g., Interleukin-6, C-reactive protein) that preclude strong tests for mediational effects. OBJECTIVE: The present study investigated the extent to which the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage and age on onset of chronic illness is mediated by dominance of the innate (inflammatory) over the acquired (antiviral) components of the immune system. METHODS: We assessed inflammation using the ratio of inflammatory to antiviral cell types (ITACT Ratio). This approach provided a stronger test of evolutionary arguments regarding the effect of social stress on chronic inflammation than is the case with cytokine measures, and afforded an opportunity to replicate findings obtained utilizing mRNA. We used structural equation modeling and longitudinal data from a sample of 100 middle-age African American women to perform our analyses. RESULTS: Dominance of inflammatory over antiviral cell activity was associated with each of the eight illnesses included in our chronic illness measure. Both socioeconomic disadvantage and age were also associated with inflammatory dominance. Pursuant to the central focus of the study, the effects of socioeconomic adversity and age on increased illness were mediated by our measure of inflammatory dominance. The indirect effect of these variables through inflammatory cell profile was significant, with neither socioeconomic disadvantage nor age showing a significant association with illness once the impact of inflammatory cell profile was taken into account. CONCLUSIONS: First, the analysis provides preliminary validation of a new measure of inflammation that is calculated based on the ratio of inflammatory to antiviral white blood cells. Second, our results support the hypothesis that socioeconomic disadvantage and chronological age increase risk for chronic illness in part through their effect on inflammatory processes.

INCORPORATING ROUTINE ACTIVITIES, ACTIVITY SPACES, AND SITUATIONAL DEFINITIONS INTO THE SOCIAL SCHEMATIC THEORY OF CRIME.

Simons and Burt's (2011) social schematic theory (SST) of crime posits that adverse social factors are associated with offending because they promote a set of social schemas (i.e., a criminogenic knowledge structure) that elevates the probability of situational definitions favorable to crime. This study extends the SST model by incorporating the role of contexts for action. Furthermore, the study advances tests of the SST by incorporating a measure of criminogenic situational definitions to assess whether such definitions mediate the effects of schemas and contexts on crime. Structural equation models using 10 years of panel data from 582 African American youth provided strong support for the expanded theory. The results suggest that childhood and adolescent social adversity fosters a criminogenic knowledge structure as well as selection into criminogenic activity spaces and risky activities, all of which increase the likelihood of offending largely through situational definitions. Additionally, evidence shows that the criminogenic knowledge structure interacts with settings to amplify the likelihood of situational definitions favorable to crime.