Dataset Information

Childhood socioeconomic hardship, family conflict, and young adult hypertension: The Santiago Longitudinal Study.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Stress derived from socioeconomic disadvantage can be damaging to mental and physical health. This study uses longitudinal data on a large prospectively studied cohort to examine how socioeconomic hardship during childhood leads to hypertension in young adulthood by its effects on family conflict, anxiety-depression, and body mass.

Method

Data are from 1,039 participants of the Santiago Longitudinal Study who were studied in childhood (M age 10 years), adolescence (14-17 years), and young adulthood (21-26 years). As young adults, 26% had elevated blood pressure or hypertension.

Results

Children from more economically disadvantaged families experienced higher levels of family conflict, which related to significant increases in anxiety-depression and body mass over time, both of which were directly linked to hypertension in young adulthood.

Conclusions

Findings provide an understanding of how early-life adversity associated with socioeconomic hardship manifests as stress-related health problems in adulthood. Intervention efforts that target overweight/obesity and anxiety and depression that stem from childhood poverty might be useful for reducing the socioeconomic disparities in adult health.

SUBMITTER: East P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7242127 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Childhood socioeconomic hardship, family conflict, and young adult hypertension: The Santiago Longitudinal Study.

East Patricia P Doom Jenalee J Delker Erin E Blanco Estela E Burrows Raquel R Correa-Burrows Paulina P Lozoff Betsy B Gahagan Sheila S

Social science & medicine (1982) 20200401

<h4>Objective</h4>Stress derived from socioeconomic disadvantage can be damaging to mental and physical health. This study uses longitudinal data on a large prospectively studied cohort to examine how socioeconomic hardship during childhood leads to hypertension in young adulthood by its effects on family conflict, anxiety-depression, and body mass.<h4>Method</h4>Data are from 1,039 participants of the Santiago Longitudinal Study who were studied in childhood (M age 10 years), adolescence (14-17 ...[more]

PMID: 32276183

Similar Datasets

Project description:Childhood family adversity predicts adult interpersonal behavior and physiological responses to interpersonal stress. Additionally, negative marital behaviors (e.g., hostility and distress maintaining attributions) predict maladaptive stress responses and mental health problems, whereas positive marital behaviors (e.g., acceptance and relationship enhancing attributions) predict adaptive physiological and psychological outcomes. The present study examined potential marital behavior mediators and moderators of the link between childhood adversity and cortisol responses to conflict. In a sample of 218 different-sex newlywed couples, we examined (a) actors' marital conflict behaviors as candidate mediators of the link between childhood adversity and cortisol responses to marital conflict discussions, and (b) partners' marital conflict behaviors as candidate moderators of the relation between childhood adversity and cortisol responses to marital discussions. Path analysis using actor-partner interdependence modeling did not confirm mediation. Instead, wives' childhood family adversity directly predicted husbands' attenuated cortisol responses, and wives' negative behavior predicted wives' attenuated cortisol responses. As hypothesized, wives' negative behaviors moderated the association between husbands' childhood family adversity and husbands' cortisol in response to conflict; husbands showed higher cortisol if they had experienced greater family adversity and if their wives displayed more negative behavior. Results suggest that childhood family adversity may carry forward to shape adult cortisol responses to conflict and highlights the importance of wives' negative behavior for both husbands and wives. These findings add to the family psychology literature by further clarifying how the interaction of stressful childhood experiences and conflict behaviors in marriage are associated with adult physiological responses to conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record

Dataset Information

Childhood socioeconomic hardship, family conflict, and young adult hypertension: The Santiago Longitudinal Study.

Objective

Method

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Childhood socioeconomic hardship, family conflict, and young adult hypertension: The Santiago Longitudinal Study.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets