Childhood socioeconomic status and inflammation: Psychological moderators among Black and White Americans

Abstract

Objective: The current study examined race differences in how childhood socioeconomic status (SES) predicted midlife inflammation. It also tested psychological resources (purpose in life, optimism, and conscientiousness) as moderators of the association between childhood SES and inflammation among Black and White adults.

Method: Data came from the biomarker subsamples of the Midlife in the United States Core and Refresher studies (n = 1,578 White and n = 395 Black participants). Childhood SES was operationalized as a composite of parental education, perceived financial status, and welfare status. Outcomes included circulating IL-6 and CRP.

Results: Childhood SES did not predict IL-6 or CRP among Black or White adults in fully adjusted models. Among Black adults with low optimism, lower childhood SES predicted higher IL-6 and CRP. Among Black adults with low purpose in life, lower childhood SES predicted higher CRP (but not IL-6). Conscientiousness did not moderate childhood SES-inflammation associations among Black adults. Among White adults with low conscientiousness or low optimism, lower childhood SES predicted higher IL-6 (but not CRP). Purpose in life did not moderate associations among White adults. Effect sizes were small (≤1% variance explained) and comparable to effects of clinical risk factors in this sample (e.g., age, chronic conditions).

Conclusions: Race differences in the childhood SES and inflammation association were not apparent. Childhood SES was linked to inflammation more strongly among those with fewer psychological resources across both racial groups. Psychological resources may be important moderators of inflammation in the context of early life SES disadvantage. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Figure 1.

Moderation of childhood SES on adult IL-6 and CRP by psychosocial resources controlling for age, gender, sample, BMI, chronic conditions, and adult SES. For all figures solid black lines represent scores below −1SD on the moderator, dotted lines represent scores around the mean on the moderator, and solid gray lines represent scores above +1SD on the moderator. Note that models were run with ln(IL-6) and ln(CRP) as the outcome, but the values have been exponentiated for visual purposes only. * simple slope p < .05. † simple slope p < .10.