Pathways linking adverse environments to emerging adults’ substance abuse and depressive symptoms: A prospective analysis of rural African American men

Abstract

For African American emerging adult men, developmental challenges are evident in their escalating substance abuse and depressive symptoms; this is particularly true for men from low-resource communities. The present study tests a developmental model linking childhood adversity and contemporaneous contextual stressors to increases in emerging adults’ substance use and depressive symptoms, indirectly, via increases in defensive/hostile relational schemas and social developmental risk factors (e.g., risky peers and romantic partners, lack of involvement in school or work). We also advance exploratory hypotheses regarding DNA methylation in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) as a moderator of the effects of stress on relational schemas. Hypotheses were tested with three waves of data from 505 rural African American men aged 19–25 years. Adverse childhood experiences predicted exposure to emerging adult contextual stressors. Contextual stressors forecast increases in defensive/hostile relational schemas, which increased social developmental risk factors. Social developmental risk factors proximally predicted increases in substance abuse and depressive symptoms. OXTR DNA methylation moderated the effects of contextual stressors on defensive/hostile relational schemas. Findings suggest that early exposures to stress carry forward to affect the development of social developmental risk factors in emerging adulthood, which place rural African American men at risk for increased substance abuse and depressive symptoms during the emerging adult years.

Deconstructing pathways to resilience: A systematic review of associations between psychosocial mechanisms and transdiagnostic adult mental health outcomes in the context of adverse childhood experiences

“…A minority of studies (Kogan et al, 2021 ; Ross et al, 2019 ; van Assche et al, 2020 ; Wong et al, 2019 ) reported an a priori power analysis before data collection (fourth criterion). Proposed mediating variables were adequately defined by researchers in the majority of the studies, and valid measurements were utilized in most cases.…”

“…The majority of included studies ( n = 25; 81%) explored factors that mediated or moderated the relationship between child adversity and depression; 12 studies (39%) investigated intervening variables in the relationship between child adversity and anxiety, and six studies (19%) examined mediators in the relationship between adversity in childhood and trauma. In some studies, the role of biological intervening variables was also tested (e.g., Kogan et al, 2021 ). These variables were outside the scope of the current review.…”

“…The role of early maladaptive and relational schemas was explored in two studies Gong & Chan, 2018 ; Kogan et al, 2021 ). Kogan et al ( 2021 ) tested a developmental model exploring the role of relational schemas and found that they were not directly associated with ACEs.…”

“…No direct effect found between emotional neglect and depression. Kogan et al (2021) ACEs predicted young adult contextual stress which in turn forecast increases in defensive/hostile schemas. Defensive/ hostile schemas predicted increases in social developmental risk factors which were a proximal antecedent of depressive symptomatology and substance abuse no direct effect of ACEs on relational schemas reported.…”

A multi-modal MRI analysis of brain structure and function in relation to OXT methylation in maltreated children and adolescents

“…We conducted an MLFA to develop an OXT methylation index (OXTmi) that reflects the characteristics of the representative probes in the promoter region [29].…”