Child and Adult Socioeconomic Status and the Cortisol Response to Acute Stress: Evidence From the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

A long-hypothesized pathway through which low socioeconomic status (SES) harms health is through dysregulation of the physiologic stress response systems. No previous studies have tested this hypothesis by investigating cortisol reactivity and recovery to acute stress in relation to SES at different times in the life course in adults. Alteration of the cortisol response to an acute stressor could signal dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and has been associated with chronic illness.

Methods

We used data on 997 adults 54 years or older from a multiethnic, multisite United States study to examine associations between life course SES and cortisol response to a laboratory stress challenge. Informed by life course theory, we hypothesized that lower

SUBMITTER: Le-Scherban F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5794563 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb/Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature