Childhood socioeconomic status is associated with psychosocial resources in African Americans: the Pittsburgh Healthy Heart Project.

Autor: Beatty DL; Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, USA. dlbeatty@umbc.edu, Kamarck TW, Matthews KA, Shiffman S
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association [Health Psychol] 2011 Jul; Vol. 30 (4), pp. 472-80.
DOI: 10.1037/a0024304
Abstrakt: Objective: To determine whether lower childhood socioeconomic status (SES) was associated with fewer psychosocial resources independent of adult SES, and whether these associations differed by race/ethnicity.
Method: Cross-sectional study of 342 middle-aged (M = 60.5 ± 4.7) African American (n = 49) and Caucasian (n = 293) adults. Childhood SES and adult SES were assessed via highest parental education and participant education, respectively. Participants completed: (a) 6 days of ecological momentary assessment via electronic diaries to assess social support and the number of social interactions and (b) self-report measures of social support, social network diversity, and coping-specifically, active, planning, and emotion focused coping.
Results: The interaction term for childhood SES and race/ethnicity significantly predicted several psychosocial resources. Lower childhood SES was associated with less perceived social support in daily life, a less diverse social network, and more limited use of proactive coping strategies in adulthood among African Americans, regardless of adult SES. Comparable associations were not observed among Caucasians.
Conclusions: Childhood SES is associated with psychosocial resources in adulthood among African Americans, independent of SES in adulthood. Given emerging associations between childhood SES and health in adulthood, future studies to disentangle the role of psychosocial resources as a mediating pathway and to further examine racial/ethnic variations across these associations are warranted.
Databáze: MEDLINE