Self-Regulatory Coping Behaviors and Stress Reactivity: Exploring the Environmental Affordance Model of Health Disparities

Abstract

Objectives To explore the relationship between self-regulatory coping behaviors (SRCB) and hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) stress reactivity. Methods Data came from the Richmond Stress and Sugar Study (n=125, median age: 57 years, 46% non-Hispanic White, 48% African American). The relationships between 11 SRCB (“health-harming” [e.g., smoking] and “health-promoting” [e.g., exercising]) with HPA stress reactivity, indicated by salivary cortisol response to the Trier Social Stress Test, was assessed using multi-level modeling. Results Health-harming and health-promoting SRCB were positively correlated (+0.33, p<0.001). Several individual behaviors were related to HPA stress reactivity, for example, smoking and meditation were associated with shallower increases in cortisol (smoking: −13.0%, 95%CI: −20.9% to −4.3%; meditation: −14.0%, 95%CI: −22.0% to −5.1%). However, SRCB summary measures were unrelated to stress reactivity. Discussion Health-harming and health-promoting SRCB are inter-related. Specific behaviors, rather than groupings as health-harming versus -promoting, are related to HPA stress reactivity.

Contemporary Research on Older Black Americans, a Special Issue of Journal of Aging and Health in Honor of the Life and Legacy of James S. Jackson

“…Two of the articles in this issue examine James Jackson’s Environmental Affordance model using data sets that were created to explicitly test this model. Mezuk et al used data from the Richmond Stress and Sugar Study to examine the relationship between self-regulatory coping behaviors (i.e., health-harming and health-promoting) and hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) stress reactivity. They find that health-harming (e.g., smoking) and health-promoting (e.g., exercising) behaviors were positively correlated.…”