Pathways connecting family socioeconomic status in adolescence and sleep continuity in adult Black and White men.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the roles of parenting and adolescent characteristics during ages 13 to 16 in connecting family socioeconomic status (SES) during adolescence with adult sleep in Black and White men. DESIGN: Longitudinal school-based community study beginning in 1987-1988 when participants were enrolled in the first or seventh grade. SETTING: Pittsburgh, PA. PARTICIPANTS: 291 men (54.4% Black, mean age = 33, SD = 2.5) participated in 2012-2014 in a week-long study of sleep measured by actigraphy and diary. MEASURES: In adolescence (ages 13-16), measures of family SES based on occupation, education, income and public assistance; parenting based on monitoring, positive expectations for future, warm parent-child relationship, and communication; and adolescent characteristics based on anxiety, hyperactivity/impulsivity, and peer rejection.  In adulthood, participant SES, minutes awake after sleep onset (WASO), duration, and diary-assessed sleep quality. RESULTS: Structural equation modeling confirmed significant indirect pathways: (1) low family SES in adolescence to negative parenting to low adult SES to greater WASO; (2) low family SES in adolescence to adolescent characteristics to low adult SES to greater WASO; (3) Black race to low family SES in adolescence to negative parenting to low adult SES to greater WASO; and (4) Black race to low family SES in adolescence to adolescent characteristics to adult SES to greater WASO. Similar models for duration and quality were not confirmed. CONCLUSIONS: Parenting and adolescent characteristics may have an indirect association with adult sleep continuity. Parenting and mental health interventions in adolescence may improve adult sleep.

Racial/ethnic disparities in women's sleep duration, continuity, and quality, and their statistical mediators: Study of Women's Health Across the Nation.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: To describe racial/ethnic differences in sleep duration, continuity, and perceived sleep quality in postmenopausal women and to identify statistical mediators of differences in sleep characteristics. METHODS: Recruited from the observational Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN), 1,203 (548 white, 303 black, 147 Chinese, 132 Japanese, and 73 Hispanic; mean age 65 years, 97% postmenopausal) women participated in a week-long actigraphy and daily diary study in 2013-2015. Actigraphic measures of sleep duration and wake after sleep onset (WASO), and diary-rated sleep quality were averaged across the week. Candidate mediators included health-related variables; stress; and emotional well-being assessed up to 13 times across 18 years from baseline to sleep study. RESULTS: Whites slept longer than other groups; the significant mediators were concurrent financial hardship and increasing number of stressors for Hispanics or Japanese versus whites. Whites had less WASO than blacks and Hispanics; significant mediators were concurrent number of health problems, physical inactivity, waist circumference, vasomotor symptoms, number of life stressors, and financial hardship, and increasing number of health problems from baseline to sleep study. Whites reported better sleep quality than blacks, Chinese, and Japanese; significant mediators were concurrent physical inactivity, vasomotor symptoms, positive affect, and depressive symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Sleep differences between blacks or Hispanics versus whites were mediated by health problems, number of stressors, and financial hardship, whereas sleep differences between Chinese or Japanese versus whites were mediated by emotional well-being. This is the first study using formal mediational approaches.

Depressive Symptoms During Childhood and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Black and White Men.

OBJECTIVE: Depressive symptoms and major depression predict cardiovascular disease (CVD) and CVD risk factors in adulthood. Evidence regarding the role of depression in the development of CVD risk in youth is minimal. The study evaluated the prospective relationship of depressive symptoms in childhood and adolescence with adult CVD risk factors in black and white men. METHODS: Health behaviors and medical history were measured in 165 black and 146 white men (mean age = 32); a subset in the Pittsburgh area had a fasting blood draw to measure metabolic syndrome and inflammation. Adult CVD risk factors were related to depressive symptoms and childhood socioeconomic status (SES) prospectively measured annually from ages 7 to 16 years, followed by adjustments for adult SES and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Men with higher depressive symptoms ages 7 to 16 smoked more cigarettes, B = 0.28 (standard error = 0.12), p = .015, and ate fewer servings of fruits and vegetables, B = -0.08 (0.04), p = .040, as adults. The association for smoking was independent of adult depressive symptoms (concurrent) and childhood and adult SES as well as race. Depressive symptoms during childhood were unrelated to the metabolic syndrome or biomarkers of inflammation in adulthood. CONCLUSIONS: Depressive symptoms in childhood may predict later adverse health behaviors in black and white men. No evidence was found for an association between childhood depressive symptoms with metabolic syndrome or inflammation markers at ages approximately 32 years. The nature of the sample and lack of measurement of depressive disorder diagnosis tempers the conclusions, and future research is needed to determine associations with biological measures at later life span phases.

Socioeconomic status in childhood predicts sleep continuity in adult Black and White men.

OBJECTIVES: Low socioeconomic status (SES) in childhood may be associated with sleep in adulthood. We evaluated the relationships between SES in childhood through adolescence and into adulthood and sleep in midlife men. DESIGN: Prospective assessment of SES in childhood and adulthood. SETTING: Population-based study of 139 Black and 105 White men enrolled since age 7 and evaluated for sleep characteristics at age 32. MEASUREMENTS: Actigraphy and diary measures of sleep duration, continuity, and quality for 1 week. Their parents reported their SES (a combination of educational attainment and occupational status) annually when the boys were ages 7 to 16. We estimated SES intercept (age 7) and slope (age 7 to 16) using M-Plus and conducted linear regression analyses using those values to predict adult sleep measures, adjusting for covariates. RESULTS: Men who had lower SES families at age 7, smaller increases in SES from ages 7 to 16, and lower SES in adulthood had more minutes awake after sleep onset. White men with greater increases in SES from ages 7 to 16 had shorter sleep. CONCLUSIONS: SES in childhood and improvement in SES through adolescence are related to sleep continuity in midlife men. To our knowledge, this is the first report using prospectively measured SES in childhood in relation to adult sleep.

Socioeconomic status and parenting during adolescence in relation to ideal cardiovascular health in Black and White men.

OBJECTIVE: American Heart Association (AHA) developed a new metric to evaluate ideal cardiovascular health based on optimal levels of 7 cardiovascular risk factors and health behaviors. We evaluated the relationships of parenting characteristics and academic achievement in adolescence in relation to ideal cardiovascular health in midlife men. METHOD: We measured cardiovascular risk factors in 171 Black and 136 White men and their ideal cardiovascular health score was constructed based on AHA guidelines. When the participants were 13-16 years old, annual measures of parent-child communication, positive relationship, parental monitoring, family cohesion, boys' involvement in family activities, and academic achievement were recorded and averaged. RESULTS: Confirmatory factor analysis of adolescent parenting measures revealed a single Parenting Composite. Multiple linear regressions showed a significant Race by Parenting Composite interaction term, ß = -.19, p = .03; better parenting was significantly related to more ideal cardiovascular health in Blacks only, ß = -.23, p = .004, which remained after adjustments for adolescent and adult socioeconomic status (SES). Academic achievement was related to ideal cardiovascular health, ß = -.13, but was no longer significant after controls for adult SES. Adult SES was a strong correlate of ideal cardiovascular health in Black and White men. CONCLUSIONS: Black men exposed to positive parenting during adolescence had more ideal cardiovascular health based on AHA guidelines. Improving academic achievement in adolescence may indirectly benefit adult cardiovascular health through improving adult SES. This is the first study of adolescent family predictors of the extent of ideal cardiovascular health. (PsycINFO Database Record

Bullying and Being Bullied in Childhood Are Associated With Different Psychosocial Risk Factors for Poor Physical Health in Men.

Bullying and being bullied in childhood are both linked with later adjustment problems. The impact of childhood bullying on risk for poor physical health in adulthood is understudied. Black and White men ( n = 305; mean age = 32.3 years) enrolled in the Pittsburgh Youth Study since the first grade underwent a comprehensive assessment of psychosocial, behavioral, and biological risk factors for poor health. Indices of bullying and being bullied were created by averaging annual ratings collected from participants and their caregivers when the participants were 10 to 12 years old. Results showed that being a bully in childhood was associated with greater stress and aggression and poorer health behaviors in adulthood, whereas being a victim of bullies in childhood was associated with lower socioeconomic resources, less optimism, and greater unfair treatment in adulthood. Unexpectedly, neither bullying nor being bullied in childhood was related to inflammation or metabolic syndrome. Bullying and being bullied in childhood were associated with distinct domains of psychosocial risk in adulthood that may later lead to poor physical health.