Association of racial discrimination in health care settings and use of electronic cigarettes to quit smoking among Black adults.

Introduction: Black people are disproportionately burdened by tobacco-related diseases and are less successful at cigarette cessation with current treatments. We know little about the effectiveness of e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation method compared to currently approved methods in Black adults who smoke. Many Black adults report experiencing racial discrimination in health care, but if discrimination is related to utilization of smoking cessation aids including e-cigarettes and success with smoking cessation in this population is unclear.

Association of Non-Cigarette Tobacco Advertisements and Racial Discrimination With Non-Cigarette Tobacco Product Use Among Black Adults.

Introduction: Black communities are targeted by more cigarette advertisements than White communities and racial discrimination among Black people is related to cigarette use. However, little is known about these factors with non-cigarette tobacco product use among Black adults. Therefore, this study assessed the association of non-cigarette advertisement exposure and racial discrimination with use of non-cigarette tobacco products among Black adults.

Racial centrality mediates the association between adolescent racial discrimination and adult cigarette smoking outcomes among Black Americans.

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate racial centrality as a mediator of the association between Black adolescents' racial discrimination experiences and their cigarette use in early adulthood.

Methods: The data were drawn from the Family and Community Health Study, which is a longitudinal study of Black American families that began in 1996. Families with a child in 5th grade who identified as Black or African American were recruited from Iowa and Georgia.

Digital methylation assessments of alcohol and cigarette consumption account for common variance in accelerated epigenetic ageing.

Smoking and Heavy Alcohol Consumption (HAC) are established risk factors for myriad complex disorders of ageing. Yet many prior studies of Epigenetic Ageing (EA) have shown only modest effects of smoking and drinking on accelerated ageing. One potential reason for this conundrum might be the reliance of some prior EA studies on self-reported substance use, which may be unreliable in many samples.

Childhood adversity predicts black young adults' DNA methylation-based accelerated aging: A dual pathway model.

We expand upon prior work (Gibbons et al., ) relating childhood stressor effects, particularly harsh childhood environments, to risky behavior and ultimately physical health by adding longer-term outcomes - deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) methylation-based measures of accelerated aging (DNA-aging). Further, following work on the effects of early exposure to danger (McLaughlin et al.

An Examination of Risk Factors for Tobacco and Cannabis Smoke Exposure in Adolescents Using an Epigenetic Biomarker.

Evolving patterns of nicotine and cannabis use by adolescents require new tools to understand the changing epidemiology of these substances. Here we describe the use of a novel epigenetic biomarker sensitive to both tobacco and cannabis smoke in a longitudinal sample of high-risk adolescents. We examine risk factors for positivity for this epigenetic biomarker in comparison to positivity for conventional serum biomarkers of nicotine and cannabis use.

Perceived racial discrimination and healthy behavior among African Americans.

Objective: Numerous studies have found evidence of a link between perceived discrimination and unhealthy behavior, especially substance use. Within this body of literature, however, several studies have found unexpected evidence of a positive relation between perceived racial discrimination among African Americans-mostly women-and certain types of healthy behavior, primarily exercise and healthy eating. The current study further examined this positive relation, including an anticipated moderator: optimism.

A simple, rapid, interpretable, actionable and implementable digital PCR based mortality index.

Mortality assessments are conducted for both civil and commercial purposes. Recent advances in epigenetics have resulted in DNA methylation tools to assess risk and aid in this task. However, widely available array-based algorithms are not readily translatable into clinical tools and do not provide a good foundation for clinical recommendations.

Refinement of cg05575921 demethylation response in nascent smoking.

The initiation of adolescent smoking is difficult to detect using carbon monoxide or cotinine assays. Previously, we and others have shown that the methylation of cg05575921 is an accurate predictor of adult smoking status. But the dose and time dependency of the demethylation response to smoking initiation in adolescents is not yet well understood.

Array-Based Epigenetic Aging Indices May Be Racially Biased.

Epigenetic aging (EA) indices are frequently used as predictors of mortality and other important health outcomes. However, each of the commonly used array-based indices has significant heritable components which could tag ethnicity and potentially confound comparisons across racial and ethnic groups. To determine if this was possible, we examined the relationship of DNA methylation in cord blood from 203 newborns (112 African American (AA) and 91 White) at the 513 probes from the Levine PhenoAge Epigenetic Aging index to ethnicity.

The impact of early racial discrimination on illegal behavior, arrest, and incarceration among African Americans.

The prospective relations between perceived racial discrimination (PRD), assessed at 4 different time periods from childhood through adolescence, along with assessments of PRD from the police ("hassling"), and self-reports of arrest and incarceration at a mean age of 24.5 years, were examined in a sample of 889 African Americans from the Family and Community Health Study. Multiple covariates were included in the analyses (e.

Saliva DNA Methylation Detects Nascent Smoking in Adolescents.

Early identification of smoking, essential for the successful implementation of interventions, arrests the escalation of smoking and smoking-associated risk behaviors in adolescents. However, because nascent smoking is typically episodic and infrequent, enzyme-linked immunoassay reagent-based approaches that detect cotinine, a key nicotine metabolite, are not effective in identifying adolescents in the earliest stages of smoking. Epigenetic methods may offer an alternative approach for detecting early-stage smokers.

Hair cortisol, perceived stress, and social support in mother-child dyads living in an urban neighborhood.

Women and children belonging to a racial/ethnic minority bear a disproportionate burden of psychosocial stress that increases their vulnerability to adverse health outcomes. Hair cortisol has been rapidly advanced as a biomarker of the intensity and course of the stress response over time and may provide an opportunity to increase our understanding of the role of psychological stress in health. However, research on the link between hair cortisol levels and subjective measures of maternal and child stress among low-income and minority individuals is limited.

Reports of perceived racial discrimination among African American children predict negative affect and smoking behavior in adulthood: A sensitive period hypothesis.

We examined the prospective relations between a cultural risk factor, perceived racial discrimination (PRD), and subsequent negative affect and health behavior (smoking) in a panel of 889 African American children (part of the Family and Community Health Study). Cultural moderators (protective factors) of these relations were also examined. PRD was assessed six times from ages 10.

The Effects of Mothers' Protective Parenting and Alcohol Use on Emerging Adults' Alcohol Use: Testing Indirect Effects Through Prototype Favorability Among African American Youth.

Background: We examined how mothers' protective parenting and alcohol use influenced changes in offspring's heavy drinking among a sample of African American youth. The conceptual model also tested indirect effects of mothers' behaviors, through changes in the youths' social images (i.e.

Racial (vs. self) affirmation as a protective mechanism against the effects of racial exclusion on negative affect and substance use vulnerability among black young adults.

Affirming one's racial identity may help protect against the harmful effects of racial exclusion on substance use cognitions. This study examined whether racial versus self-affirmation (vs. no affirmation) buffers against the effects of racial exclusion on substance use willingness and substance use word associations in Black young adults.

Moderation of the effects of discrimination-induced affective responses on health outcomes.

Objective: The goal of the study was to examine differential mediation of long-term effects of discrimination on health behaviour and health status by internalising (anxiety and depression) and externalising (hostility and anger), and to explore moderation of these effects, specifically, by the presence of support networks and coping tendencies.

Design: The current analyses employed structural equation modelling of five waves of data from Black female participants of the Family and Community Health Study over 11 years (M age 37-48).

Main Outcomes Measures: The main outcome variables were health status and alcohol use (frequency and problematic consumption).

A Tobacco Cessation Intervention with Rural, Medically Underserved, Blue-collar Employees: A Quasiexperimental Study.

Background: The aim of this study was to increase knowledge regarding the dangers associated with tobacco use, and decrease secondhand smoke exposure and tobacco use behaviors with an antitobacco messaging campaign among rural, medically underserved, blue-collar workers.

Methods: A quasiexperimental study was conducted with employees at two worksites. One worksite received the intervention, which consisted of nine different antitobacco messages.

Reversion of AHRR Demethylation Is a Quantitative Biomarker of Smoking Cessation.

Smoking is the largest preventable cause of morbidity and mortality in the world. Although there are effective pharmacologic and behavioral treatments for smoking cessation, our inability to objectively quantify smokers' progress in decreasing smoking has been a barrier to both clinical and research efforts. In prior work, we and others have shown that DNA methylation at cg05575921, a CpG residue in the aryl hydrocarbon receptor repressor (AHRR), can be used to determine smoking status and infer cigarette consumption history.

Methylomic Aging as a Window onto the Influence of Lifestyle: Tobacco and Alcohol Use Alter the Rate of Biological Aging.

Objectives: To examine the effect of the relationship between alcohol and cigarette consumption on biological aging using deoxyribonucleic acid methylation-based indices.

Design: Hierarchical linear regression modeling followed by fitting of higher-order effects.

Setting: Longitudinal studies of aging and the effect of psychosocial stress.