A new study from scholars at Washington University in St. Louis has found that the elevated mortality risk among Black Americans may be explained by the population’s greater exposure to stress throughout the lifespan compared to White Americans.
“If stress becomes chronic, that could be incorporated into one’s homeostasis; you may become less able to mount your biological systems to respond to acute stress challenges and you may be less able to return to a bodily state that promotes regeneration and restoration,” said senior author Ryan Bodgan, the William R. Stuckenberg Professor in Human Values and Moral Development and director of the university’s BRAIN Lab.
For their study, the authors reviewed data from the St. Louis Personality and Aging Network Study, which has followed older adults for nearly 20 years. Using information from blood draws, surveys, and retrospective reports of childhood experiences, the authors examined participants’ extent of stress exposure across their lifetime and its association with inflammatory biological markers.
According to the authors’ analysis, Black participants experienced elevated stress exposure and elevated levels of inflammation compared to White participants, which explained roughly half of the elevated mortality risk among Black Americans in the study. The authors theorize that Black participants’ elevated cumulative stress levels have origins in repeated exposure to racism and the societal structures that have disadvantaged the Black American population for generations.
“Stress exposure will always be there,” said the study’s lead author, Isaiah Spears, a graduate student at the university. “So we need to devote more efforts to understand the mechanisms through which stress contributes to adverse health outcomes so that factors could be targeted to minimize health risks among those exposed.”
