Poster #23 - Childhood Financial and Familial Stress Differentially Predict Adrenocortical Dysregulation in Mexican-Origin Adolescents

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Biological Processes: Psychophysiology

Integrative Statement

Background: Impoverished families have been shown to experience increased levels of familial conflict, along with harsher, more unresponsive parenting and a greater risk of dissolution (Conger & Elder, 1994). In this way, financial distress can impact the family environment in a multitude of ways, posing as a risk factor for adolescents’ psychophysiological development. This study examines the associations between financial hardship and familial conflict throughout pre- to mid-adolescence (ages 10-16) and adolescents’ stress physiology via the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis.
Hypothesis: In accord with allostatic load models, chronic financial and familial stress across adolescence was expected to predict diminished adolescents stress regulation via decreased activation of the HPA axis in response to an acute stressor.
Method: Participants included 223 adolescents of predominantly lower-income Mexican-origin families (48.4% cisgender female; 51.6% cisgender male). Parents reported on annual household income (converted to income-to-needs ratios) and both parents and youths reported on interparental and parent-child conflict at child ages 10, 12, 14, and 16 years. At age 17, youths participated in Cyberball, a computerized social exclusion task; saliva samples were collected prior to and at four time points following social exclusion (20, 30, 40 and 50 minutes post) from which cortisol was assayed.
Analyses: Repeated measures of income-to-needs ratios and family conflict were modelled separately using latent growth curve analysis, with intercepts modelled as the average across waves and slopes as the change from ages 10 to 16 years. A piecewise linear growth curve model was fit to physiological markers of cortisol, consisting of an intercept (pre-stressor baseline), a stress reactivity slope (pre-task to 20 minutes post-task), and a stress recovery slope (20 to 50 minutes post-task). Adolescents’ HPA reactivity and recovery from social exclusion were predicted from trajectories of poverty and family conflict across pre- to mid-adolescence.
Results: There was a significant main effect of income-to-needs slope predicting adolescent HPA reactivity, such that increasing income-to-needs predicted less HPA reactivity, b = .176, p = .011. Adolescent gender moderated several associations between family conflict and HPA reactivity and recovery. For example, gender significantly moderated a family conflict intercept by slope interaction predicting baseline HPA activity. For female adolescents, when average family conflict was low, increasing slope of conflict predicted higher baseline cortisol (b = .327, p = .051). When average family conflict was high, increasing slope of conflict predicted lower baseline cortisol (b = -.238, p = .081).
Discussion: Contrary to expectations, chronic poverty predicted stronger, rather than attenuated. HPA responses to acute stress in Mexican-origin youth. Further analyses will be conducted to examine income dynamics in this sample. Consistent with allostatic load theory, in female youths, chronic and increasing conflict predicts lowered HPA activity, whereas recent conflict strengthened HPA activity. In sum, this study highlights gender differences in links between stressors during adolescence and youths’ stress physiology and points to familial stress as one significant factor impacting Mexican-origin adolescents’ adrenocortical functioning. As such, family conflict dynamics may pose one pathway by which stress within the family context contributes to later adverse health outcomes.

Authors

• Lisa E. Johnson, University of California, Davis
  Presenting Author

• Luis A. Parra, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• David Gerrick Weissman, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sasha Han, Medical College of Wisconsin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Richard W. Robins, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Amanda Guyer, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Paul Hastings, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author