Socioeconomic status in children is associated with hair cortisol levels as a biological measure of chronic stress

Vliegenthart, J.; Noppe, Gerard; Rossum, Elisabeth F.C. van; Koper, Jan W.; Raat, Hein; Akker, Erica L T van den

doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2015.11.022

Cited by 142 publications

(119 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Additionally, we found that lower parental education was related to higher HCC in children, which is consistent with two prior studies (Vaghri et al, 2013; Vliegenthart et al, 2016), but contrasts with three studies reporting null relations (Groeneveld et al, 2013; Karlen et al, 2013; Liu et al, 2016). These three studies, however, had restricted ranges of parental education, which may have made it more difficult to detect an effect.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…In adults, one study reported that lower income was associated with higher HCC (Serwinski et al, 2016), but others have not found differences in adult HCC by income (Chen et al, 2013; Wosu et al, 2015) or education (Serwinski et al, 2016; Wosu et al, 2015). In children, some studies have reported that lower parental education (Rippe et al, 2016; Vaghri et al, 2013; Vliegenthart et al, 2016) and lower family income (Rippe et al, 2016) are associated with higher HCC, whereas others have not found associations between child HCC and parental income (Vaghri et al, 2013) or parental education (Groeneveld et al, 2013; Karlen et al, 2013; Liu et al, 2016). At least two of these studies, however, may have been limited in their ability to detect associations of SES with HCC because they utilized small samples, which were not purposefully recruited from a broad range of socioeconomic backgrounds (Groeneveld et al, 2013; Liu et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Socioeconomic status, hair cortisol and internalizing symptoms in parents and children

Ursache

Merz

Melvin

et al. 2017

Psychoneuroendocrinology

113

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Socioeconomic disadvantage is consistently linked with higher risk for internalizing problems, and stress is likely one important mechanism explaining this increased risk. Few studies have examined socioeconomic differences in hair cortisol, a novel biomarker of long-term adrenocortical activity and chronic stress. Moreover, no studies have examined whether differences in hair cortisol might explain socioeconomic disparities in internalizing problems. To address these gaps, we first examined relations of socioeconomic status (SES; family income and parental education) to variation in both parents’ and children’s hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) and then tested whether HCC and perceptions of stress mediated relations of SES to parents’ and children’s internalizing symptoms. Participants were a socioeconomically diverse sample of 35 parents and 26 children (ages 5 to 7). Parents completed questionnaires, and hair samples were collected from parents and children. Parents reported on children’s internalizing symptoms on average 2 years after the initial visit. Results demonstrated that lower parental education was associated with higher HCC for both parents and children. Effects for child HCC held even after controlling for parent HCC. Lower family income was associated with higher parent HCC, but not child HCC. This relation was nonlinear, such that the relation between HCC and income was strongest among the most disadvantaged parents. Furthermore, associations of SES with parental anxiety were significantly mediated by parental perceptions of stress and marginally mediated by parent HCC. These findings suggest that socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with greater accumulation of cortisol in hair in parents and children, and that both perceived and biological markers of stress capture important facets of the experiences that underlie socioeconomic disparities in adult anxiety.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socioeconomic status, hair cortisol and internalizing symptoms in parents and children

Ursache

Merz

Melvin

et al. 2017

Psychoneuroendocrinology

113

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Initial studies showed altered hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) in unaffected adults with high levels of chronic stress and in cases suffering from psychiatric disorders (including bipolar disorders, depression, and anxiety disorder) compared with controls (reviewed in Herane Vives et al, 2015). More recent studies found similar associations in children and adolescents for objective stress and HCC (Rippe et al, 2016;Simmons et al, 2016;Vliegenthart et al, 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 71%

Hair Cortisol and Its Association With Psychological Risk Factors for Psychiatric Disorders: A Pilot Study in Adolescent Twins

Rietschel¹,

Streit

Zhu

et al. 2016

Twin Res Hum Genet

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Measuring cortisol in hair is a promising method to assess long-term alterations of the biological stress response system, and hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) may be altered in psychiatric disorders and in subjects suffering from chronic stress. However, the pattern of associations between HCC, chronic stress and mental health require clarification. Our exploratory study: (1) assessed the association between HCC and perceived stress, symptoms of depression and neuroticism, and the trait extraversion (as a control variable); and (2) made use of the twin design to estimate the genetic and environmental covariance between the variables of interest. Hair samples from 109 (74 female) subjects (age range 12-21 years, mean 15.1) including 8 monozygotic (MZ) and 21 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs were analyzed. Perceived stress was measured with the Perceived Stress Scale and/or the Daily Life and Stressors Scale, neuroticism, and extraversion with the NEO-Five Factor Inventory or the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and depressive symptoms with the Somatic and Psychological Health Report. We found a modest positive association between HCC and the three risk factors -perceived stress, symptoms of depression, and neuroticism (r = 0.22-0.33) -but no correlation with extraversion (-0.06). A median split revealed that the associations between HCC and risk factors were stronger (0.47-0.60) in those subjects with HCC >11.36 pg/mg. Furthermore, our results suggest that the genetic effects underlying HCC are largely shared with those that influence perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and neuroticism. These results of our proof of principle study warrant replication in a bigger sample but raise the interesting question of the direction of causation between these variables.

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“…To our knowledge, only one study to date has investigated the link between residential environment and hair cortisol. In their work, Vliegenthart and colleagues (Vliegenthart et al, 2016) found that neighborhood SES negatively correlated with hair cortisol in a group of Dutch children and adolescents. Whether the same association is observed in adults or older adults has not yet been tested.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Brief report: Neighborhood disadvantage and hair cortisol among older urban African Americans

Zilioli

Slatcher

Fritz

et al. 2017

Psychoneuroendocrinology

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Previous studies have shown that living in poor neighborhoods is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. However, researchers are now investigating the biological pathways responsible for the deleterious effects of neighborhood disadvantage on health. This study investigated whether neighborhood disadvantage (i.e., a measure of relative neighborhood quality derived by combining social and built environmental conditions) was associated with hair cortisol—a retrospective indicator of long-term hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis activation—and whether this link would be mediated by self-reported neighborhood satisfaction. Forty-nine older African Americans aged were recruited from thirty-nine Detroit census tracts across five strata of census tract adversity. Participants were interviewed face-to-face to collect psychosocial measures. Each provided a hair sample for analysis of cortisol. Multiple regression analyses revealed that higher neighborhood disadvantage was associated with higher levels of hair cortisol levels and that neighborhood satisfaction partially explained this association. These results are the first to our knowledge to demonstrate a direct link between neighborhood disadvantage and hair cortisol in a sample of older adults and to show that the self-reported neighborhood satisfaction may be a psychological intermediary of this association.

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Socioeconomic status in children is associated with hair cortisol levels as a biological measure of chronic stress

Cited by 142 publications

References 36 publications

Socioeconomic status, hair cortisol and internalizing symptoms in parents and children

Socioeconomic status, hair cortisol and internalizing symptoms in parents and children

Hair Cortisol and Its Association With Psychological Risk Factors for Psychiatric Disorders: A Pilot Study in Adolescent Twins

Brief report: Neighborhood disadvantage and hair cortisol among older urban African Americans

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