Key result
Exposure to a racially-charged movie clip significantly increased salivary cortisol levels from 9.0 nmol/L to 10.1 nmol/L in African-American adults.
Why the study?
Does exposure to a racially-charged stimulus increase salivary cortisol responses in African-American adults?
Observational (n=245)
No
Does exposure to a racially-charged stimulus increase salivary cortisol responses in African-American adults?
Racial provocation induces significant acute increases in cortisol and blood pressure in African-Americans, highlighting a potential physiological mechanism linking racial stress to cardiovascular disease disparities.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Racial stress exposure may acutely elevate cortisol in African-Americans; hypothesis-generating for CVD disparity mechanisms and needs prospective trials.
Purpose: To examine salivary cortisol responses to a racially-charged stimulus in a group of African-American individuals. Methods: A nonrandom sample of 245 (age: 43.8 ± 11.1 years; 64% female) African-American individuals was recruited by advertisements. Specifically, salivary cortisol was assessed prior to and after being exposed to a racially-charged movie clip. In addition, the salivary cortisol was assessed in the morning and evening of the day following exposure to the racially-charged movie clip. Results: A statistically significant increase in cortisol was found (P 0.005) in the whole sample. High cortisol responders (highest tertile) and low cortisol responders (lowest tertile) were compared. The high cortisol responders had an elevated cortisol level the following morning (P 0.05) that abated by the evening sample (P > 0.20). In addition, the high cortisol responders who were younger, had lower waist to hip ratios, and experienced less lifetime discrimination than the low cortisol responders (P’s 0.05). Conclusions: The findings of an increase in cortisol in response to a racial provocation may provide a potential explanatory factor for the increased rates of cardiovascular disease in African-American individuals.
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Weinstein et al. (2013) conducted an observational in Healthy African-American adults (n=245). Racially-charged movie clip vs. Pre-exposure baseline was evaluated on Salivary cortisol response (p=0.006). Exposure to a racially-charged movie clip significantly increased salivary cortisol levels from 9.0 nmol/L to 10.1 nmol/L in African-American adults.
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