Racial Discrimination and Stress Across the Life Course
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Among Black Americans, interpersonal racial discrimination is common. Stress, including following discrimination, contributes to pregnancy complications. In this secondary analysis, we provide data on associations among discrimination, stress, and their interaction across the life course and inflammation, perceived stress, and depressive symptoms during pregnancy. METHODS: During the early third trimester, Black American women (n = 93) completed the Experiences of Discrimination Scale, the Stress and Adversity Inventory, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Inventory. Plasma interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-8, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and IL-β levels were quantified. Associations were examined by linear regression, controlling for demographic, behavioral, and clinical covariates. RESULTS: Associations among racial discrimination and plasma IL-8, TNF-α, and IL-β levels depended upon average ratings of life course stress. When stress was low, discrimination in the mid tertile was associated with the highest levels of IL-8, TNF-α, and IL-β. Subscale analyses suggested that findings related to IL-8 were driven by chronic stress whereas findings related to TNF-α and IL-β were driven by acute stress. When examined together, greater discrimination but not greater life course stress was associated with higher prenatal perceived stress. In subscale analyses, the association between discrimination and prenatal perceived stress depended upon average ratings of life course acute stress. When acute stress was low, discrimination in the midtertile was associated with the highest levels of prenatal perceived stress. When acute stress was high, discrimination in the high tertile was associated with the highest levels of prenatal perceived stress. There were also direct associations among greater life course chronic stress, prenatal perceived stress, and prenatal depressive symptoms. Associations were attenuated when discrimination was included as a covariate. CONCLUSIONS: The current analyses suggest that, among Black Americans, prenatal inflammation, perceived stress, and depressive symptoms may be shaped by racial discrimination and stress across the life course. In many cases, associations among discrimination and prenatal parameters depended upon how stressful exposures to life course stressors had been rated. The data suggest the potential for adaptive plasticity under some stress and highlight the deleterious nature of compounding stress.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".