TY - JOUR
T1 - Childhood Poverty and Young Adults' Allostatic Load
T2 - The Mediating Role of Childhood Cumulative Risk Exposure
AU - Evans, Gary W.
AU - Kim, Pilyoung
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the William T. Grant Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Network for Socioeconomic Status and Health.
PY - 2012/9
Y1 - 2012/9
N2 - Childhood poverty is linked to a host of physical and psychological disorders during childhood and later in life. In the study reported here, we showed that the proportion of childhood spent in poverty from birth to age 9 was linked to elevated allostatic load, a marker of chronic physiological stress, in 17-year-olds. Furthermore, this prospective longitudinal relationship was mediated by cumulative risk exposure at age 13. The greater the duration of early life spent in poverty, the greater the exposure to cumulative risk. This, in turn, leads to elevated allostatic load. Multiple psychological, biological, and neurological pathways likely account for the social patterning of psychological and physical disease.
AB - Childhood poverty is linked to a host of physical and psychological disorders during childhood and later in life. In the study reported here, we showed that the proportion of childhood spent in poverty from birth to age 9 was linked to elevated allostatic load, a marker of chronic physiological stress, in 17-year-olds. Furthermore, this prospective longitudinal relationship was mediated by cumulative risk exposure at age 13. The greater the duration of early life spent in poverty, the greater the exposure to cumulative risk. This, in turn, leads to elevated allostatic load. Multiple psychological, biological, and neurological pathways likely account for the social patterning of psychological and physical disease.
KW - poverty
KW - stress reactions
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84866343847&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0956797612441218
DO - 10.1177/0956797612441218
M3 - Article
C2 - 22825357
AN - SCOPUS:84866343847
SN - 0956-7976
VL - 23
SP - 979
EP - 983
JO - Psychological Science
JF - Psychological Science
IS - 9
ER -