Journal article
The effects of social adversity, discrimination, and health risk behaviors on the accelerated aging of African Americans: Further support for the weathering hypothesis
Social science & medicine (1982), Vol.282, 113169
07/07/2020
DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113169
PMID: 32690336
Abstract
The weathering hypothesis views the elevated rates of illness, disability, and mortality seen among Black Americans as a physiological response to the structural barriers, material hardships, and identity threats that comprise the Black experience. While granting that lifestyle may have some significance, the fundamental explanation for heath inequalities is seen as race-related stressors that accelerate biological aging.
The present study tests the weathering hypothesis by examining the impact on accelerated aging of four types of adversity frequently experienced by Black Americans. Further, we investigate whether health risk behaviors mediate the effect of these conditions.
Our analyses utilize data from 494 middle-age, African American men and women participating in the Family and Community Healthy Study. The newly developed GrimAge index of accelerated aging is used as an indicator of weathering. Education, income, neighborhood disadvantage, and discrimination serve as the independent variables. Three health risk behaviors - diet, exercise, and alcohol consumption - are included as potential mediators of the four types of adversity. Marital status and gender are entered as controls.
Multivariate analyses indicated that the four types of adversity predicted acceleration whereas marriage predicted deceleration in speed of aging. Males showed greater accelerated aging than females, but there was no evidence that gender conditioned the effect of adversity. The health risk behaviors were unrelated to accelerated aging and did not mediate the effect of the stressors.
Modern medicine's emphasis on life style as the primary explanation for race-based health disparities ignores the way race-related adversity rooted in structural and cultural conditions serves to accelerate biological decline, thereby increasing risk of early onset of illness and death. Importantly, these social conditions can only be addressed through social policies and programs that target institutional racism and promote economic equity.
•Speed of aging was used as an indicator of weathering among Black Americans.•Speed of aging was assessed using the epigenetic index GrimAge.•Income, education, discrimination, and neighborhood predicted accelerated GrimAge.•Being married predicted decelerated biological aging.•The findings suggest a weathering effect where adversity fosters premature aging.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The effects of social adversity, discrimination, and health risk behaviors on the accelerated aging of African Americans: Further support for the weathering hypothesis
- Creators
- Ronald L Simons - Department of Sociology, University of Georgia, 324 Baldwin Hall, Athens, GA, 30602, USAMan-Kit Lei - Center for Family Research, University of Georgia, 1095 College Station Road, Athens, GA, 30605, USAEric Klopack - Department of Sociology, University of Georgia, 104 Baldwin Hall, Athens, GA, 30602, USASteven R.H Beach - Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, 157 IBR Psychology Building, Athens GA, 30602, USAFrederick X Gibbons - Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, Storrs, CT, 06269, USARobert A Philibert - Department of Psychiatry, University of Iowa, 2-126B Medical Education Building, Iowa City, IA, 52242, USA
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Social science & medicine (1982), Vol.282, 113169
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113169
- PMID
- 32690336
- NLM abbreviation
- Soc Sci Med
- ISSN
- 0277-9536
- eISSN
- 1873-5347
- Publisher
- Elsevier Ltd
- Grant note
- DOI: 10.13039/100000026, name: National Institute on Drug Abuse, award: R21 DA034457, R01 AG055393, R01 HL118045, R01 HD080749; DOI: 10.13039/100000049, name: National Institute on Aging, award: R21 DA034457, R01 AG055393, R01 HL118045, R01 HD080749; DOI: 10.13039/100000050, name: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, award: R21 DA034457, R01 AG055393, R01 HL118045, R01 HD080749; DOI: 10.13039/100000071, name: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, award: R21 DA034457, R01 AG055393, R01 HL118045, R01 HD080749; DOI: 10.13039/100000002, name: National Institutes of Health, award: R21 DA034457, R01 AG055393, R01 HL118045, R01 HD080749
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 07/07/2020
- Academic Unit
- Roy J. Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering; Psychiatry; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984070399902771
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