Dataset Information

Social status and biological dysregulation: the "status syndrome" and allostatic load.

ABSTRACT: Data from a national sample of 1255 adults who were part of the MIDUS (Mid-life in the U.S.) follow-up study and agreed to participate in a clinic-based in-depth assessment of their health status were used to test the hypothesis that, quite part from income or educational status, perceptions of lower achieved rank relative to others and of relative inequality in key life domains would be associated with greater evidence of biological health risks (i.e., higher allostatic load). Results indicate that over a variety of status indices (including, for example, the person's sense of control, placement in the community rank hierarchy, perception of inequality in the workplace) a syndrome of perceived relative deprivation is associated with higher levels of biological dysregulation. The evidence is interpreted in light of the well-established associations between lower socio-economic status and various clinically identified health morbidities. The present evidence serves, in effect, both as a part of the explanation of how socio-economic disparities produce downstream morbidity, and as an early warning system regarding the ultimate health effects of currently increasing status inequalities.

SUBMITTER: Seeman M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4167677 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Social status and biological dysregulation: the "status syndrome" and allostatic load.

Seeman Melvin M Stein Merkin Sharon S Karlamangla Arun A Koretz Brandon B Seeman Teresa T

Social science & medicine (1982) 20140805

Data from a national sample of 1255 adults who were part of the MIDUS (Mid-life in the U.S.) follow-up study and agreed to participate in a clinic-based in-depth assessment of their health status were used to test the hypothesis that, quite part from income or educational status, perceptions of lower achieved rank relative to others and of relative inequality in key life domains would be associated with greater evidence of biological health risks (i.e., higher allostatic load). Results indicate ...[more]

PMID: 25112569

Similar Datasets

Project description:Background and objectivesLow socioeconomic status confers unfavorable health, but the degree and mechanisms by which life course socioeconomic status affects kidney health is unclear.Design, setting, participants, & measurementsWe examined the association between cumulative lifetime socioeconomic status and CKD in black Americans in the Jackson Heart Study. We used conditional process analysis to evaluate allostatic load as a potential mediator of this relation. Cumulative lifetime socioeconomic status was an age-standardized z-score, which has 1-SD units by definition, and derived from self-reported childhood socioeconomic status, education, and income at baseline. Allostatic load encompassed 11 baseline biomarkers subsuming neuroendocrine, metabolic, autonomic, and immune physiologic systems. CKD outcomes included prevalent CKD at baseline and eGFR decline and incident CKD over follow-up.ResultsAmong 3421 participants at baseline (mean age 55 years [SD 13]; 63% female), cumulative lifetime socioeconomic status ranged from -3.3 to 2.3, and 673 (20%) had prevalent CKD. After multivariable adjustment, lower cumulative lifetime socioeconomic status was associated with greater prevalence of CKD both directly (odds ratio [OR], 1.18; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.04 to 1.33 per 1 SD and OR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.15 to 1.83 in lowest versus highest tertile) and via higher allostatic load (OR, 1.09; 95% CI, 1.06 to 1.12 per 1 SD and OR, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.11 to 1.24 in lowest versus highest tertile). After a median follow-up of 8 years (interquartile range, 7-8 years), mean annual eGFR decline was 1 ml/min per 1.73 m2 (SD 2), and 254 out of 2043 (12%) participants developed incident CKD. Lower cumulative lifetime socioeconomic status was only indirectly associated with greater CKD incidence (OR, 1.04; 95% CI, 1.01 to 1.07 per 1 SD and OR, 1.08; 95% CI, 1.02 to 1.14 in lowest versus highest tertile) and modestly faster annual eGFR decline, in milliliters per minute (OR, 0.01; 95% CI, 0.00 to 0.02 per 1 SD and OR, 0.02; 95% CI, 0.00 to 0.04 in lowest versus highest tertile), via higher baseline allostatic load.ConclusionsLower cumulative lifetime socioeconomic status was substantially associated with CKD prevalence but modestly with CKD incidence and eGFR decline via baseline allostatic load.

Project description:The contemporaneous association between higher socioeconomic position and better health is well established. Life course research has also demonstrated a lasting effect of childhood socioeconomic conditions on adult health and well-being. Yet, little is known about the separate health effects of intergenerational mobility-moving into a different socioeconomic position than one's parents-among early adults in the United States. Most studies on the health implications of mobility rely on cross-sectional datasets, which makes it impossible to differentiate between health selection and social causation effects. In addition, understanding the effects of social mobility on health at a relatively young age has been hampered by the paucity of health measures that reliably predict disease onset. Analysing 4,713 respondents aged 25 to 32 from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health's Waves I and IV, we use diagonal reference models to separately identify the effects of socioeconomic origin and destination, as well as social mobility on allostatic load among individuals in the United States. Using a combined measure of educational and occupational attainment, and accounting for individuals' initial health, we demonstrate that in addition to health gradient among the socially immobile, individuals' socioeconomic origin and destination are equally important for multi-system physiological dysregulation. Short-range upward mobility also has a positive and significant association with health. After mitigating health selection concerns in our observational data, this effect is observed only among those reporting poor health before experiencing social mobility. Our findings move towards the reconciliation of two theoretical perspectives, confirming the positive effect of upward mobility as predicted by the "rags to riches" perspective, while not contradicting potential costs associated with more extensive upward mobility experiences as predicted by the dissociative thesis.

Project description:OBJECTIVES:To investigate potential geographical and socioeconomic patterning of allostatic load (AL) in China. DESIGN:Multilevel longitudinal study of the 2010 Chronic Disease Risk Factor Surveillance linked to the National Death Surveillance up to 31 December 2015. SETTING:All 31 provinces in China, not including Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan. PARTICIPANTS:96 466 ≥ 18 years old (women=54.3%). EXPOSURES:Person-level educational attainment and mean years of education in counties. OUTCOME:AL was measured using clinical guidelines for nine biomarkers: body mass index; waist circumference; systolic blood pressure; diastolic blood pressure; fasting blood glucose; total cholesterol; triglycerides; high-density lipoprotein cholesterol; low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. RESULTS:Multilevel logistic regressions adjusted for sex, age, marital status, person-level education, county mean years of education and urban/rural reported ORs of 1.22 (95% CI 1.08 to 1.38) for 5-year all-cause mortality (n=3284) and 1.20 (1.04-1.37) for deaths from non-communicable diseases (n=2891) among people in AL quintile 5 (high) compared with quintile 1 (low). The median rate ratio estimated from unadjusted multilevel negative binomial regression showed AL clustered geographically (province=1.14; county=1.12; town=1.11; village=1.14). After adjusting for aforementioned confounders, AL remained higher with age (rate ratio 1.02, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.02), higher in women compared with men (1.17, 1.15 to 1.19), lower among singletons (0.83, 0.81 to 0.85) and widowers (0.96, 0.94 to 0.98). AL was lower among people with university-level compared with no education (0.92, 0.89 to 0.96), but higher in counties with higher mean education years (1.03, 1.01 to 1.05). A two-way interaction suggested AL was higher (1.04, 1.02 to 1.06) among those with university-level compared with no education within counties with higher mean years of education. Similar results were observed for alternative constructions of AL using 75th and 80th percentile cut-points. CONCLUSIONS:AL in China is patterned geographically. The degree of association between AL and person-level education seems to be dependent on area-level education, which may be a proxy for other contextual factors that warrant investigation.

Dataset Information

Social status and biological dysregulation: the "status syndrome" and allostatic load.

Publications

Social status and biological dysregulation: the "status syndrome" and allostatic load.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets