Cortisol and socioeconomic status in early childhood: A multidimensional assessment

Abstract

The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis is sensitive to early life stress, with enduring consequences for biological stress vulnerability and health (Gunnar & Talge, 2008). Low socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with dysregulation of the stress hormone cortisol in early childhood. However, a mechanistic understanding of this association is lacking. Multidimensional assessment of both SES and cortisol is needed to characterize the intricate relations between SES and cortisol function in early childhood. We assessed parent-reported family income, parent education, occupational prestige, neighborhood risk, food insecurity, and household chaos for 12-month-old infants (N = 90) and 3.5-year-old children (N = 91). Hair cortisol concentration (HCC) was obtained from parent and child, indexing chronic biological stress, and diurnal salivary cortisol was measured in the children. Controlling for parent HCC, parent education uniquely predicted infant and child HCC and, in addition, neighborhood risk uniquely predicted infant HCC. Household chaos predicted bedtime salivary cortisol concentration (SCC) for both infants and children, and infant daily cortisol output. Food insecurity was associated with flattened cortisol slope in 3.5-year-old children. Parental sensitivity did not mediate relations between SES and cortisol. Results highlight the utility of SES measures that index unpredictable and unsafe contexts, such as neighborhood risk, food insecurity, and household chaos.

Neurobiological Implications of Parent–Child Emotional Availability: A Review

“…Parental sensitivity was unrelated to the infant cortisol measures. Despite finding a connection between parental sensitivity and HCC, parental sensitivity was not found to mediate links between SES risks and HCC in the 12-month-old group or 3.5-year-old group [52]. These results suggest that the interactions between parent sensitivity and child hair cortisol are likely to be complex, and it would therefore be beneficial for researchers to utilize the entirety of the EA Scales in order to more accurately observe how SES risks may play a role in parenting and child cortisol functioning.…”

“…Their indirect effect finding suggested that a lower ITN ratio was linked to elevated amygdala responses to negative infant faces, and this was further associated with lower nonintrusiveness (meaning the mother was observed to be more intrusive) during the interaction. Similarly to the study by Tarullo, Tuladhar, Kao, Drury and Meyer [52], there was no effect for maternal sensitivity [71]. This finding has huge implications for future interventions for low-income mothers, who may be more vulnerable to altered neural processing of emotional expressions, and calls for more research on the links between SES, stress physiology, neural processing, and all of the EA Scales.…”

“…One well-researched stress contributing factor is the impact of low socioeconomic status (SES). Tarullo, et al [52] examined the link between SES and cortisol functioning in early childhood, using a multidimensional approach to assess SES and cortisol concentration. Measuring income-to-need, parent education, occupational prestige, neighborhood risk, food insecurity, and household chaos allowed the researchers to look at the underlying SES factors that play a role in cortisol functioning.…”

Trajectory of Food Insecurity and Its Association with Longitudinal Mental Health and Sleep Outcomes in Adolescents from Economically Disadvantaged Families

“…Contrarily, men who experienced any form of FI had longer sleep latencies than fully food-secure men [ 21 ]. A biological model involving the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis has been proposed to understand the process of how FI perturbs physical functions [ 22 , 23 ]. In a study on monkeys, food-deprived female monkeys manifested marked individual cortisol responses and compromised normative maternal–infant rearing behaviors [ 22 ].…”

Cortisol in early childhood moderates the association between family routines and observed affective balance in children from low‐income backgrounds

“…Family routines may help to mitigate the effects of chronic stress by establishing predictability and structure within the environment (Larsen & Jordan, 2020). Indeed, multiple research teams have identified associations between household chaos and child HPA axis functioning (e.g., Brown et al, 2019;Doom et al, 2018;Tarullo et al, 2020). For example, experiencing more household chaos during preschool has been found to predict a more blunted diurnal cortisol slope during middle childhood (Doom et al, 2018;Larsen & Jordan, 2020).…”