Socioeconomic Adversity, Social Resources, and Allostatic Load Among Hispanic/Latino Youth: The Study of Latino Youth

Allostasis, health, and development in Latin America

The lifespan is influenced by adverse childhood experiences that create predispositions to poor health outcomes. Here we propose an allostatic framework of childhood experiences and their impact on health across the lifespan, focusing on Latin American and Caribbean countries. This region is marked by significant social and health inequalities nested in environmental and social stressors, such as exposure to pollution, violence, and nutritional deficiencies, which critically influence current and later-life health outcomes. We review several manifestations across cognition, behavior, and the body, observed at the psychological (e.g., cognitive, socioemotional, and behavioral dysfunctions), brain (e.g., alteration of the development, structure, and function of the brain), and physiological levels (e.g., dysregulation of the body systems and damage to organs). To address the complexity of the interactions between environmental and health-related factors, we present an allostatic framework regarding the cumulative burden of environmental stressors on physiological systems (e.g., cardiovascular, metabolic, immune, and neuroendocrine) related to health across the life course. Lastly, we explore the relevance of this allostatic integrative approach in informing regional interventions and public policy recommendations. We also propose a research agenda, potentially providing detailed profiling and personalized care by assessing the social and environmental conditions. This framework could facilitate the delivery of evidence-based interventions and informed childhood-centered policy-making.

Immigrant Parent Legal Status and Children's Health in the Hispanic Community Health Study of Latino Youth (SOL Youth)

We assess how immigrant parent legal status shapes children's physical and mental health. Using the Hispanic Community Health Study of Latino Youth-a multi-site dataset-we evaluated mean differences in multiple physical and mental health indicators and parents' and children's stress and resilience by parents' (primarily mothers') legal status (N = 1177). We estimated regression models of two overall child health outcomes-allostatic load and any internalized disorder. Average allostatic load was 28% higher (0.36 standard deviations) and average prevalence of any internalizing disorder was 16% points greater for children of foreign-born unauthorized versus US-born parents. Higher levels of socioeconomic and acculturative stress contributed to children of foreign-born unauthorized parents' heightened health risk, while resilience factors-parental health and familial support-protected their health. Children with unauthorized immigrant parents experience both negative physical and mental health outcomes that can have potential long-term costs.

Allostatic Load in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

INTRODUCTION

The concept of allostatic load encompasses the cumulative effects of both ordinary daily life events as well as major challenges, and also includes related health-damaging behavior. Allostatic overload ensues when environmental challenges exceed the individual's ability to cope. Identification of allostatic load is carried out through the use of biomarkers and clinimetric criteria. Studies are increasingly reported on allostatic load in younger populations, yet a systematic review is missing.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of the present systematic review was to summarize the current knowledge on allostatic load/overload among children and adolescents.

METHODS

PubMed, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library were searched from inception to April 2023. A manual search of the literature was also performed. We considered only studies in which allostatic load or overload were adequately described and assessed in either clinical or non-clinical populations younger than 18 years.

RESULTS

A total of 38 original investigations were included in this systematic review. Studies reported an association between allostatic load and sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., poverty, ethnicity, perceived discrimination, adverse childhood experiences) and environmental factors, as well as consequences of allostatic load on both physical and mental health among children and adolescents.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings indicate that greater allostatic load is associated with poorer health outcomes in both clinical and non-clinical pediatric populations, with possible enduring effects. The results support the clinical utility of the transdiagnostic identification of allostatic load and overload in children and adolescents across a variety of settings, with a number of potential clinical implications.

Dimensions of acculturation and biological dysregulation among Latina/os: the role of ethnic background, gender, and immigrant generation

Objective: Research examining how different dimensions of acculturative beliefs and behaviors influence the risk of biological dysregulation among Latina/os is limited. This study examined associations between three types of acculturation and allostatic load (i.e. a multisystem index of biological dysregulation) across gender and Latina/o ethnic groups. Multiplicative models were also included in order to determine whether immigrant generation moderates acculturation-allostatic load relationships.Design: Data were drawn from the Hispanic Community Health Study/ Study of Latina/os. The sample consisted of 11,841 Latina/os from five ethnic groups: Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican, and South/Central American. The measure for allostatic load was derived from 15 biomarker and anthropometric measures that were designed to capture cardiometabolic risk, glucose metabolism, cardiopulmonary function, inflammation, and organ function. Acculturation measures, immigrant generation, gender, ethnic background, and other covariates were derived from self-reports. Survey corrected ordinary least squares regressions were used to assess relationships between different dimensions of acculturation and allostatic load.Results: Results demonstrate dimensions of acculturation play a significant role in the risk of biological dysregulation for Latina/os with divergent results across gender and ethnic background. Estimates from the multiplicative models show immigrant generation moderates acculturation-allostatic load relationships, and relationships are dependent on gender and ethnic background.Conclusion: The study contributes to the understanding of how different dimensions of acculturation, as well as other important structural determinants of health, influence the risk of biological dysregulation among Latina/os. Finding from this study can inform targeted strategies designed to reduce the physiological consequences of chronic stress among Latina/os.

The Health of Hispanic Children from Birth to Emerging Adulthood

This article summarizes frameworks for understanding Hispanic children's health, sources of national data available to evaluate their health, and variations in health among Hispanic children. Following ecological and life-course perspectives, we organize our review of the literature on Hispanic children's health and development according to three key stages of child development (zero to three, early to middle childhood, and adolescence to emerging adulthood) with attention to how each stage influences the next. Within each stage, we consider how social position (i.e. skin color, social class, gender, and nativity), social contexts (i.e. family, school, and neighborhood), and political and legal contexts influence Hispanic children's health and development. To improve the health and development of Hispanic children, federal, state, and local policies must address social and economic injustices that lead to declines in health across immigrant generations and persistent racial/ethnic health disparities.

Annual Research Review: Social relationships and the immune system during development

A child's social relationships serve critical functions during development. The interface between a child's social world and their immune system, particularly innate immunity, which helped children survive in the face of infections, nutritional scarcity, and violence throughout human history, is the focus of this Annual Research Review. This article reviews the state of research on social relationships and innate immune inflammation during childhood. Warmth and rejection in childhood social relationships, as well as physical trauma and unpredictable social environments, were not consistently related to circulating inflammatory markers such as interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein during childhood. Instead, links between social environments and inflammation were observed in studies that focus on children with greater background risk factors, such as low family socioeconomic status, family history of mood disorders, or presence of chronic interpersonal stressors combined with acute episodic stressors. In addition, studies on worse childhood social environments and greater inflammation in adulthood were more consistent. Warmth and rejection in the social environment may be related to sensitivity of immune cells to the anti-inflammatory actions of glucocorticoids, though this is primarily observed in adolescent women at risk for depression. Additional mechanistic evidence suggests that greater warmth and less rejection are related to processes that regulate inflammation, including greater expression of the glucocorticoid receptor gene and lower expression of genes that are responsive to the pro-inflammatory transcription factor NF-kappa B. The article concludes by discussing implications of the interface between a child's social relationships and inflammation for mental health and other recent (on evolutionary timescales) health threats, as well as recommendations for future research, and recommendations for researchers interested in integrating inflammatory measures in developmental research.

Addressing educational inequalities and promoting learning through studies of stress physiology in elementary school students

To be ready to learn, children need to be focused, engaged, and able to bounce back from setbacks. However, many children come to school with heightened or diminished physiological arousal due to exposure to poverty-related risks. While stress physiology plays a role in explaining how adversity relates to processes that support students' cognitive development, there is a lack of studies of physiological stress response in educational settings. This review integrates relevant studies and offers future directions for research on the role of stress physiology in the school adaptation of elementary school students, focusing on these important questions: (a) What are the links between physiological stress response and learning-related skills and behaviors, and do they vary as a function of proximal and distal experiences outside of school? (b) How are school experiences associated with students' physiological stress response and related cognitive and behavioral adaptations? (c) How can we leverage measures of students' physiological stress response in evaluations of school-based interventions to better support the school success of every student? We hope to stimulate a new wave of research that will advance the science of developmental stress physiology, as well as improve the application of these findings in educational policy and practice.

Association between prolonged separation from parents and allostatic load among children in China

OBJECTIVE

To capture the association of exposure to prolonged separation from both parents early in life and allostatic load (AL), a measure of biological multi-system dysregulation.

METHODS

We used data from 557 7-12-year-old children enrolled in rural area of Chizhou city, Anhui Province, China. We computed an AL score based on eleven biomarkers representing four regulatory systems: immune/inflammatory system (high sensitivity C-reactive protein); metabolic system (body mass index; high density lipoprotein; low density lipoprotein, total cholesterol; triglycerides; fasting glucose; glycated hemoglobin; insulin) and cardiovascular system (systolic and diastolic blood pressure). Child's experiences of parent-child separation were collected a brief online questionnaire by parents of children.

RESULTS

More than 1 in 3 of our participants separated with both parents at age 6 or younger and nearly 1 in 10 persistently separated from both parents after birth. The AL score was significantly higher among children separated from both parents during early childhood (3.25 ± 1.98) or persistently since birth (3.48 ± 1.92), compared with those who did not separated from both parents (2.34 ± 1.53, F = 12.992, P<0.001). After adjustment of demographic covariates, body mass index as well as parent frequency of communication and parental warmth, children who separated from both parents in early childhood (β = 0.84, 95%CI:0.40, 1.28, P < 0.001) or persistently into adolescence (β = 1.27, 95%CI:0.43, 2.12, P = 0.003) evinced the highest levels of AL.

CONCLUSION

This study is the first to show an association between prolonged parent-child separation and physiological wear-and-tear as measured by AL, which provides potential insights into the biological mechanisms underpinning long-term health outcomes in contexts of parent-child separation.

Socioeconomic status and differential psychological and immune responses to a human-caused disaster

OBJECTIVE

Individuals from different socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds may respond variably to stressful events, and such differences are likely to contribute to health disparities. The current study leveraged data collected before and after a petrochemical explosion and aimed to investigate how individuals from different SES backgrounds responded to this unexpected stressor in terms of perceived social support, perceived stress, and systemic inflammation.

METHODS

Data were drawn from 124 participants (M_age = 55.9 ± 16.1 years, 69.4% female, 29.0% White) living close to a petrochemical complex where the explosion occurred in 2005. SES was assessed at baseline, and perceived stress and inflammatory markers (i.e., C-reactive protein [CRP], interleukin-6 [IL-6]) were assessed at both pre- and post-explosion. Perceived social support was assessed at post-explosion.

RESULTS

Lower SES was associated with less perceived social support. Lower SES was also associated with a larger increase in perceived stress and higher levels of IL-6, but not CRP. Perceived social support did not moderate or mediate the effects of SES on changes in perceived stress, IL-6, or CRP. The associations between SES and inflammatory markers were also not explained by changes in perceived stress.

CONCLUSION

Findings from this study support the idea that individuals from different SES backgrounds respond differently to stressors at both the psychosocial (perceived social support and perceived stress) and biological (inflammation) levels. Our findings also suggest that these two processes appear to act independently from each other.