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Chronic stress and illness in children: the role of allostatic load
C H Johnston-Brooks1, M A Lewis, G W Evans
1Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Boulder 80309, USA.
Insights
Chronic stress impacts children's health. Cardiovascular reactivity (CVR), a marker of allostasis, mediates the link between household density and illness in boys, supporting allostasis as a key stress-health mechanism.
Area of Science:
- Psychoneuroimmunology
- Environmental Health
- Child Development
Background:
- Chronic stress negatively affects health, with children being particularly vulnerable.
- Allostasis, the body's adaptive response to stressors, is a proposed but under-researched mechanism linking stress and health.
- Understanding these links is crucial for promoting child well-being.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate allostasis as a physiological mechanism mediating the relationship between chronic stress and health in school-aged children.
- To examine if allostatic load, specifically cardiovascular reactivity (CVR), explains the impact of environmental stressors on children's health outcomes.
Main Methods:
- A sample of 81 school-aged boys was studied.
- Household density was used as a measure of chronic environmental stress.
- Cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) served as a marker of allostatic load.
- School absences due to illness were recorded as the health outcome.
Main Results:
- Structural equation modeling demonstrated a significant mediating effect.
- The model explained 17% of the variance in illness-related school absences.
- CVR was found to mediate the relationship between household density and illness.
Conclusions:
- This study provides the first empirical evidence that CVR mediates the link between household density and medical illness in children.
- Findings support the role of allostasis as a physiological mechanism underlying the chronic stress-health relationship in pediatric populations.
- These results highlight the importance of considering physiological adaptation in the context of environmental stressors and child health.
Objective:
Recent studies of stress have highlighted the contributions of chronic psychological and environmental stressors to health and well-being. Children may be especially vulnerable to the negative effects of chronic stressors. Allostasis, the body's ability to adapt and adjust to environmental demands, has been proposed as an explanatory mechanism for the stress-health link, yet empirical evidence is minimal. This study tested the proposition that allostasis may be an underlying physiological mechanism linking chronic stress to poor health outcomes in school-aged children. Specifically, we examined whether allostasis would mediate or moderate the link between chronic stress and health.
Method:
To test the hypothesis that allostasis contributes to the relation between chronic stress and poor health, we examined household density as a chronic environmental stressor, cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) as a marker of allostatic load, and number of school absences due to illness as the health outcome in a sample of 81 boys.
Results:
Structural equation modeling indicated that the mediating model fit the data well, accounting for 17% of the variance in days ill.
Conclusions:
Results provide the first evidence that CVR may mediate the relation between household density and medical illness in children. More generally, these findings support the role of allostasis as an underlying mechanism in the link between chronic stress and health.