Perceived Discrimination, Racial Identity, and Multisystem Stress Response to Social Evaluative Threat Among African American Men and Women :

Abstract

<div class="section"> <a class="named-anchor" id="S1"> <!-- named anchor --> </a> <h5 class="section-title" id="d11976490e174">Objective</h5> <p id="P1">Understanding individual differences in the psychobiology of the stress response is critical to grasping how psychosocial factors contribute to racial and ethnic health disparities. However, the ways in which environmentally sensitive biological systems coordinate in response to acute stress is not well understood. We employed a social-evaluative stressor task to investigate coordination among the autonomic nervous system (ANS), hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, immune/inflammatory system, and neurotrophic response system in a community sample of 85 healthy African American men and women. </p> </div><div class="section"> <a class="named-anchor" id="S2"> <!-- named anchor --> </a> <h5 class="section-title" id="d11976490e179">Methods</h5> <p id="P2">Six saliva samples – two collected before and four collected during and after the stressor – were assayed for cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate (DHEAs; HPA-axis markers), salivary α amylase (sAA; ANS marker), salivary c-reactive protein (sCRP; inflammatory/immune marker), and salivary nerve growth factor (sNGF; neurotrophic marker). Individual differences in perceived discrimination and racial identity were also measured. </p> </div><div class="section"> <a class="named-anchor" id="S3"> <!-- named anchor --> </a> <h5 class="section-title" id="d11976490e184">Results</h5> <p id="P3">Factor analysis demonstrated that stress systems were largely dissociated before stressor exposure, but became aligned during event and recovery phases into functional biological stress responses (factor loadings .71to.96). Coordinated responses were related to interactions of perceived discrimination and racial identity: when racial identity was strong, high perceived discrimination was associated with low hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis arousal at baseline ( <i>B’s</i> = .68 to.72, <i>p</i> &lt; .001) and during the task ( <i>B’s</i> =.46 to .62, <i>p</i> ≤ .049), and a robust inflammatory response (sCRP) during recovery ( <i>B’s</i> =.72 to.94, <i>p</i> ≤ .002). </p> </div><div class="section"> <a class="named-anchor" id="S4"> <!-- named anchor --> </a> <h5 class="section-title" id="d11976490e208">Conclusion</h5> <p id="P4">Culturally-relevant social perceptions are linked to a specific pattern of changing alignment in biological stress responses. Better understanding these links may significantly advance understanding of stress-related illnesses and health disparities. </p> </div>