Financial Stressors During the Great Recession and Subsequent Risk of Early Mortality

Human biology and the study of precarity: How the intersection of uncertainty and inequality is taking us to new extremes

Inequality represents an extreme environment to which humans must respond. One phenomenon that contributes to this growing extreme is precarity or the intersection of uncertainty and some form of inequality. While precarity has an important intellectual history in the fields of sociology and sociocultural anthropology, it has not been well studied in the field of human biology. Rather human biologists have engaged with the study of closely related concepts such as uncertainty and resource insecurity. In this article, we propose that human biology take on the study of precarity as a novel way of investigating inequality. We first provide a brief intellectual history of precarity which is followed by a review of research on uncertainty and resource security in human biology which, while not exhaustive, illustrates some key gaps that precarity may aid us in addressing. We then review some of the pathways through which precarity comes to affect human biology and health and some of the evidence for why the unpredictable nature of precarity may make it a unique physiological stress. A case study based on research in Nuñoa, Peru provides an important example of how precarity can elucidate the influences of health in an extreme setting, albeit with insights that apply more broadly. We conclude that precarity holds important potential for the study of human biology, including helping us more effectively operationalize and study uncertainty, encouraging us to explore the predictability of resources and stressors, and reminding us to think about the intersectional nature of stressors.

Unpacking Psychological Vulnerabilities in Deaths of Despair

Recent demographic findings show increased rates of death due to suicide, drug addictions, and alcoholism among midlife white adults of lower socioeconomic status (SES). These have been described as "deaths of despair" though little research has directly assessed psychological vulnerabilities. This study used longitudinal data from the Midlife in the U.S. (MIDUS) study to investigate whether low levels of eudaimonic and hedonic well-being predict increased risk of deaths of despair compared to other leading causes of death (cancer, heart disease). The investigation focused on 695 reported deaths with cause of death information obtained from 2004 to 2022 via NDI Plus. Key questions were whether risk for deaths due to despair (suicide, drug addiction, alcoholism) compared to deaths due to cancer or heart disease were differentially predicted by deficiencies in well-being, after adjusting for sociodemographic variables. Low levels of purpose in life, positive relations with others, personal growth and positive affect predicted significantly greater likelihood of deaths of despair compared to deaths due to heart disease, with such patterns prominent among better-educated adults. The findings bring attention to ongoing intervention efforts to improve psychological well-being.

Resources and lymphocyte terminal maturity among older adults

OBJECTIVE

Women's financial resources were associated with more terminal maturity in natural killer lymphocytes, generally associated with loss of proliferative potential, during the "Great Recession". This preregistered analysis expanded on that finding in a longitudinal design including both genders and examining the role of cytomegalovirus (CMV) serostatus.

METHOD

Older adults (N = 138, 57% women) were assessed longitudinally during 2012-2017; including self-reported psychological, social, financial, and status-skill resources, CMV antibody titers and serostatus, and assessment of T and natural killer lymphocyte terminal maturity (LTM).

RESULTS

Neither total nor financial resources were associated with LTM. Adjusting only for age, more psychological resources (e.g., meaning, hope, humor) were associated with lower T LTM (percent: γ = -1.11 [-1.78, -.44]; number: γ = -.99 [-1.70, -.27]). There were no significant interactions with age, gender, or CMV serostatus; however, additionally adjusting for serostatus reduced the effect of psychological resources (percent: γ = -.41 [-93, .12]; number: (γ = -.40 [-.94, .13]).

CONCLUSIONS

Outside the context of the "Great Recession", psychological resources but not financial resources were associated with terminal maturity in T cells, a relationship related to CMV serostatus. Further studies in different and more diverse samples, and in different eras, are needed to understand what resources are most protective against immunological aging, when, and for whom. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Cardiovascular reactivity, stress, and personal emotional salience: Choose your tasks carefully

Both greater cardiovascular reactivity and lesser reactivity ("blunting") to laboratory stressors are linked to poor health outcomes, including among people who have a history of traumatic experiences. In a sample of recently separated and divorced adults (N = 96), this study examined whether differences in cardiovascular reactivity might be explained by differences in the personal emotional salience of the tasks and trauma history. Participants were assessed for trauma history, current distress related to their marital dissolution, and cardiovascular reactivity during two tasks, a serial subtraction math stressor task and a divorce-recall task. Participants with a greater trauma history evidenced less blood pressure reactivity to the serial subtraction task (a low personal emotional salience task) when compared to participants with less trauma history. In contrast, participants with a greater trauma history evidenced higher blood pressure reactivity to the divorce-recall task, but only if they also reported more divorce-related distress (high personal emotional salience). These associations were not significant for heart rate reactivity. Among people with a history of more traumatic experiences, a task with low personal salience was associated with a lower blood pressure response, whereas a task with higher personal emotional salience was associated with a higher blood pressure response. Future studies examining cardiovascular reactivity would benefit from determining the personal emotional salience of tasks, particularly for groups that have experienced stressful life events or trauma.

Linking stressful life events and chronic inflammation using suPAR (soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor)

Stressful life events have been linked to declining health, and inflammation has been proposed as a physiological mechanism that might explain this association. Using 828 participants from the Dunedin Longitudinal Study, we tested whether people who experienced more stressful life events during adulthood would show elevated systemic inflammation when followed up in midlife, at age 45. We studied three inflammatory biomarkers: C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and a newer biomarker, soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR), which is thought to index systemic chronic inflammation. Stressful life events were not associated with CRP or IL-6. However, people who experienced more stressful life events from age 38 to 44 had elevated suPAR at age 45, and had significantly greater increases in suPAR from baseline to follow-up across the same period. When examining stressful life events across the lifespan, both adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and adult stressful life events were independently associated with suPAR at age 45. ACEs moderated the association of adult stressful life events and suPAR at age 45-children with more ACEs showed higher suPAR levels after experiencing stressful life events as adults. The results suggest systemic chronic inflammation is one physiological mechanism that could link stressful life events and health, and support the use of suPAR as a useful biomarker for such research.