June 15, 2001
Children of parents with low education and low-status jobs are more likely to perceive ambiguous situations as threatening and thereby place added stress on their hearts, according to a recent study conducted by Edith Chen, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences.
The study, which appears in the May issue of Annals of Behavioral Medicine, suggests that these children appear to develop a constant vigilance to protect themselves against frequent external threats, often translating into an added strain on their cardiovascular systems.
Co-authored by Chen and Karen A. Matthews, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh, the study may help explain why people who grow up in disadvantaged families are more likely to develop heart disease.
"Over time, this physiological burden may lead to health problems such as hypertension and coronary heart disease, both of which have been associated with low (socioeconomic status) in adulthood," the authors said.
Their study, which initially included 201 children, half of who were African-American, found that disadvantaged children in the sample had increased vascular resistance --a sign of increased load on the cardiovascular system --during stress-inducing events. These children were also more likely than wealthier peers to interpret ambiguous situations as threatening or hostile and react with anger.
However, when the researchers adjusted the data to control for the children's perceptions of hostile intent, the association between socioeconomic status and heart function decreased significantly, suggesting that their biased perceptions were, in large part, responsible for the increased vascular resistance.
They also found that the change in cardiovascular function was more closely associated with the perception of hostile intent than with the actual anger it inspired.
The researchers suggest that although these effects are small, the cumulative impact as children develop may be substantial. During follow-up with 149 of the children an average of three years later, they also found that the primary effects seemed to grow stronger over time in African-American children.
"If balanced with a recognition that such cognitions are adaptive in threatening environments, interventions that help low-(socioeconomic status) children to minimize such biases in nonthreatening situations may reduce the physiological toll of such cognitions, which may lead to reductions in the risk of cardiovascular disease later in life," the authors said.
The study was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on SES and Health and the Pittsburgh Mind-Body Center.
Chen studies psychological influences on health among children and the effects of socioeconomic status on health, including the cognitive and psychobiological factors that might mediate such effects. A psychology faculty member here since 2000, she graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1993 with bachelor's degrees in history and science and earned a doctorate in clinical psychology in 1998 from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Chen received a National Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and has been a project leader for the Pittsburgh Mind-Body Center, which is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.