Linked emergence of racial disparities in mental health and epigenetic biological aging across childhood and adolescence.

ABSTRACT: Marginalization due to structural racism may confer an increased risk for aging-related diseases - in part - via effects on people's mental health. Here we leverage a prospective birth cohort study to examine whether the emergence of racial disparities in mental health and DNA-methylation measures of biological aging (i.e., DunedinPACE, GrimAge Acceleration, PhenoAge Acceleration) are linked across childhood and adolescence. We further consider to what extent racial disparities are statistically accounted for by perinatal and postnatal factors in preregistered analyses of 4898 participants from the Future of Families & Child Wellbeing Study, of which 2039 had repeated saliva DNA methylation at ages 9 and 15 years. We find that racially marginalized children had higher levels of externalizi

SUBMITTER: Aikins M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12339396 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature