Supportive Family Environments Ameliorate the Link Between Racial Discrimination and Epigenetic Aging: A Replication Across Two Longitudinal Cohorts.
This study tested the hypothesis that supportive family environments during adolescence buffer exposure to racial discrimination, reducing its impact on biological weathering and its manifestation in cellular aging. Perceived racial discrimination, support in the family environment, and confounder variables were assessed for 3 consecutive years across adolescence in two independent cohorts of African American youth from rural Georgia. DNA was extracted from peripheral blood mononuclear cells collected during young adulthood. Patterns of methylation were used to index the epigenetic ages of these cells and the extent to which they differed from participants' chronological ages. Among youth in supportive family environments, exposure to higher levels of racial discrimination did not forecast greater epigenetic aging. Among youth in less supportive family environments, exposure to higher levels of racial discrimination did forecast greater epigenetic aging. The associations emerged independently of confounder variables, and the results were replicated across the two cohorts.
['Brody|Gene H|GH|', 'Miller|Gregory E|GE|', 'Yu|Tianyi|T|', 'Beach|Steven R H|SR|', 'Chen|Edith|E|']
D000293:Adolescent D001741:African Americans D000375:Aging D019175:DNA Methylation D004777:Environment D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic D005190:Family D005260:Female D005845:Georgia D006801:Humans D007963:Leukocytes, Mononuclear D008137:Longitudinal Studies D008297:Male D063505:Racism D012424:Rural Population D055815:Young Adult
adolescent development environmental effects minority groups racial and ethnic attitudes and relations relationship quality