The goal of our project is to conduct a population-level investigation of social contexts, stress, and health. We integrate multiple biomarkers of stress with current theory and measurement tools from the social and behavioral sciences to gain a better understanding of how social contexts """"""""get under the skin"""""""" to affect stress and health in young adults. We use data from four waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) in pursuit of three objectives: 1) Examine the interrelations among multiple subjective and physiological measures of stress; 2) Investigate how measures of socio-economic status, neighborhood quality, and interpersonal relationships in childhood/adolescence and over the transition to adulthood influence stress in early adulthood; and 3) Test competing theoretical models of the joint influence of socio- economic status, neighborhood quality, and interpersonal relationships on stress. We examine subjective measures of stress, including perceived stress, symptoms of depression, and symptoms of anxiety, as well as physiological measures of endocrine, cardiovascular, metabolic, immune, and inflammatory activity. We take advantage of the breadth and depth of the Add Health dataset to conduct the most comprehensive investigation to date of how social stress affects physical and mental health. Additionally, the large sample size and racial, ethnic, and economic diversity of Add Health allow us to investigate the extent to which stress leads to health disparities. Stress is a major contributor to morbidity and mortality, and investigating the physiological mechanisms through which social contexts affect human health can help investigators, clinicians, and policy makers to: a) identify adverse psychosocial environments; b) better understand predisease and disease pathways; and c) inform interventions to reduce exposure to stressors, reduce the adverse impact of stressors on physiology, and prevent the emergence of stress-related disorders.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD053731-02
Application #
7393659
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-HOP-B (03))
Program Officer
Spittel, Michael
Project Start
2007-04-01
Project End
2012-01-31
Budget Start
2008-02-01
Budget End
2009-01-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2008
Total Cost
$282,205
Indirect Cost
Name
Northwestern University at Chicago
Department
Other Health Professions
Type
Organized Research Units
DUNS #
160079455
City
Evanston
State
IL
Country
United States
Zip Code
60201
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