Real-Time Racial Discrimination, Affective States, Salivary Cortisol and Alpha-Amylase in Black Adults

Details

• Personal Author:
  Ash G ; Granger DA ; Jeon S ; Lee S-J ; Nam S ; Nelson LE
• Description:
  Perceived racial discrimination has been associated with the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activities-two major stress response systems. To date, most studies have used cross-sectional data that captured retrospective measures of the racial discrimination associated with current physiological stress responses. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between racial discrimination measured in real-time and physiological stress responses. Twelve healthy Black adults completed baseline surveys and self-collected saliva samples 4x/day for 4 days to measure cortisol and alpha amylase (AA) as a proxy of HPA and ANS systems, respectively. Real-time racial discrimination was measured using ecological momentary assessments (EMA) sent to participants 5x/day for 7 days. Multilevel models were conducted to examine the relationship between racial discrimination and stress responses. In multilevel models, the previous day's racial discrimination was significantly associated with the next day's cortisol level at wakening (β = 0.81, partial r = 0.74, p<0.01) and diurnal slope (β = -0.85, partial r = -0.73, p<0.01). Also, microaggressions were significantly associated with the diurnal cortisol slope in the same day, indicating that on the day when people reported more microaggressions than usual, a flatter diurnal slope of cortisol was observed (β = -0.50, partial r = -0.64, p<0.01). The concurrent use of salivary biomarkers and EMA was feasible methods to examine the temporal relationship between racial discrimination and physiological stress responses. The within-person approach may help us understand the concurrent or lagged effects of racial discrimination on the stress responses. Further studies are needed to confirm the observed findings with a large sample size and to improve stress related health outcomes in racial/ethnic minorities. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Biomarkers Minority Health Occupational Health Race Factors Safety
• Keywords:
  Autonomic Nervous System Discrimination Minority Health Physiological Response Racial Factors Stress
• ISSN:
  1932-6203
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  California ; Connecticut ; OSHA Region 1 ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  17
• Issue:
  9
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20067169
• Citation:
  PLoS One 2022 Sep; 17(9):e0273081
• Contact Point Address:
  Soohyun Nam, Yale University, School of Nursing, Orange, CT, United States of America
• Email:
  soohyun.nam@yale.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2022
• Performing Organization:
  University of California, Berkeley
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  PLoS One
• End Date:
  20250630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:48d67444a578adcef859de4a3d530390ac5cb3e188e392dade5da3962eae56c70057253ad2d659275011bd7eba23fcd39a83a5dbdf3eb11711d78926620663f5
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/231310/cdc_231310_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 892.96 KB ]