Effects of a responsive parenting intervention on Black mothers' depressive symptoms postpartum: Secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial.

Objective: This study examined whether a responsive parenting (RP) intervention for first-time Black mothers had secondary benefits for their mental health by reducing their postpartum depressive symptoms.

Method: In total, 212 first-time Black mothers participated in the Sleep Strong African American Families randomized control trial. Mothers were randomized to the RP condition or a safety control condition at 1-week postpartum.

Cumulative Socioeconomic Status Risk is Associated With Greater Increase in Serum Neurofilament Light Chain Levels Among Middle-Aged Black Adults.

Background: This study examined the longitudinal relationship between cumulative socioeconomic status (SES) risk and serum neurofilament light chain (NfL) levels to better understand the association between social factors and a biomarker of neurodegeneration.

Methods: We used data from the Family and Community Health Study, collecting psychosocial and blood data at 2 waves (2008) and (2019) from 254 Black Americans (43 males and 211 females). Blood samples were analyzed at each wave for serum NfL concentrations.

Racial discrimination predicts subjective cognitive decline: Perceived relationship support buffers the association.

Objectives: Recent studies show that chronic exposure to racial discrimination increases the occurrence of subjective cognitive decline (SCD) among Black Americans. Little research, however, has examined potential for protective factors, such as perceived partner support, to buffer these effects.

Methods: This study utilized longitudinal data over a 10-year period from the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS) to examine the associations between experiences of racial discrimination, marital status, partner support, and SCD, measured by the Everyday Cognition (ECog) Scale, among 286 middle-aged Black American women.

Objective Assessments of Smoking and Drinking Outperform Clinical Phenotypes in Predicting Variance in Epigenetic Aging.

The reliability of the associations of the acceleration of epigenetic aging (EA) indices with clinical phenotypes other than for smoking and drinking is poorly understood. Furthermore, the majority of clinical phenotyping studies have been conducted using data from subjects of European ancestry. In order to address these limitations, we conducted clinical, physiologic, and epigenetic assessments of a cohort of 278 middle-aged African American adults and analyzed the associations with the recently described principal-components-trained version of GrimAge (i.

Racial Discrimination and Risk for Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms Among Black Youths.

Importance: Racial discrimination is a psychosocial stressor associated with youths' risk for psychiatric symptoms. Scarce data exist on the moderating role of amygdalar activation patterns among Black youths in the US.

Objective: To investigate the association between racial discrimination and risk for psychopathology moderated by neuroaffective processing.

Stress Accumulation, Depressive Symptoms, and Sleep Problems among Black Americans in the Rural South.

Centuries of systemic racism in the United States have led to Black Americans facing a disproportionate amount of life stressors. These stressors can have negative effects on mental and physical health, contributing to inequities throughout the lifespan. The current study used longitudinal data from 692 Black adults in the rural South to examine the ways in which neighborhood stress, financial strain, and interpersonal experiences of racial discrimination operate independently and in tandem to impact depressive symptoms and sleep problems over time.

Racial discrimination during middle age predicts higher serum phosphorylated tau and neurofilament light chain levels a decade later: A study of aging black Americans.

Introduction: Recent evidence suggests that exposure to the stress of racism may increase the risk of dementia for Black Americans.

Methods: The present study used 17 years of data from a sample of 255 Black Americans to investigate the extent to which exposure to racial discrimination predicts subsequent changes in serum Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) biomarkers: serum phosphorylated tau181(p-tau181), neurofilament light (NfL), and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). We hypothesized that racial discrimination assessed during middle age would predict increases in these serum biomarkers as the participants aged into their 60s.

Responsive parenting and Black mothers' postpartum sleep: Secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial.

Objective: To determine if an intervention designed to enhance early responsive parenting (RP) practices (e.g., reading infant cues, establishing bedtime routines) and promote infant sleep and soothing among Black families has secondary benefits for mothers' postpartum sleep.

Partner-Involved Financial Incentives for Smoking Cessation in Dual-Smoker Couples: A Randomized Pilot Trial.

Introduction: Members of dual-smoker couples (in which both partners smoke) are unlikely to try to quit smoking and are likely to relapse if they do make an attempt. The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility, tolerability, and preliminary outcomes of dyadic adaptations of financial incentive treatments (FITs) to promote smoking cessation in dual-smoker couples.

Aims And Methods: We enrolled 95 dual-smoker couples (N = 190) in a three-arm feasibility RCT comparing two partner-involved FITs (single vs.

Shift-and-persist coping and health among rural African American adolescents.

This study examines whether shift-and-persist coping, a coping strategy defined by accepting challenges and remaining hopeful for the future, is associated with psychosocial and physical health and/or moderates the effects of contextual stress (i.e., racial discrimination, financial strain) on health among African American adolescents living in the rural Southeastern United States.

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND THE WEATHERING OF NONMARITAL RELATIONSHIPS.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of perceived racial discrimination on the satisfaction and dissolution of different-gender, nonmarital relationships among African American young adults.

Background: Racial discrimination has proven detrimental to relationship quality among married couples. Racial disparities in relationship processes begin long before marriages form, however.

Couples' communication quality differs by topic.

Extensive research has demonstrated that couples' communication quality is related to many aspects of couples' lives, including relationship satisfaction. However, the possibility that the quality of couples' communication might vary as a function of the topic of communication and the implications of this variability have received relatively little attention. Accordingly, this study sought to examine (a) within-person variability in communication quality between topics, (b) associations with relationship satisfaction, and (c) associations with stressors focal to specific topics.

Changes in Loneliness, BDNF, and Biological Aging Predict Trajectories in a Blood-Based Epigenetic Measure of Cortical Aging: A Study of Older Black Americans.

A recent epigenetic measure of aging has developed based on human cortex tissue. This cortical clock (CC) dramatically outperformed extant blood-based epigenetic clocks in predicting brain age and neurological degeneration. Unfortunately, measures that require brain tissue are of limited utility to investigators striving to identify everyday risk factors for dementia.

Effects of a Responsive Parenting Intervention Among Black Families on Infant Sleep: A Secondary Analysis of the Sleep SAAF Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Black individuals in the US experience sleep disparities beginning in infancy and continuing throughout the lifespan, suggesting early interventions are needed to improve sleep.

Objective: To investigate whether a responsive parenting (RP) intervention for Black mothers improves infant sleep and increases responsive sleep parenting practices.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This is a post hoc secondary analysis of the Sleep SAAF (Strong African American Families) study, a randomized clinical trial comparing an RP intervention with a safety control condition over the first 16 weeks post partum.

Racial Discrimination and Private Regard Among Black Early Adolescents: Testing Between- and Within-Person Associations Over Time.

The current study examined concurrent and longitudinal associations between experiences of racial discrimination and private regard (i.e., feelings about being Black and other Black people) among 346 Black early adolescents who completed four assessments over two years.

Specifying the psychosocial pathways whereby child and adolescent adversity shape adult health outcomes.

Background: Social scientists generally agree that health disparities are produced, at least in part, by adverse social experiences, especially during childhood and adolescence. Building on this research, we use an innovative method to measure early adversity while drawing upon a biopsychosocial perspective on health to formulate a model that specifies indirect pathways whereby childhood and adolescent adversity become biologically embedded and influence adult health.

Method: Using nearly 20 years of longitudinal data from 382 Black Americans, we use repeated-measures latent class analysis (RMLCA) to construct measures of childhood/adolescent adversities and their trajectories.