Previous studies have shown that living in poor neighborhoods is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. However, researchers are now investigating the biological pathways responsible for the deleterious effects of neighborhood disadvantage on health. This study investigated whether neighborhood disadvantage (i.e., a measure of relative neighborhood quality derived by combining social and built environmental conditions) was associated with hair cortisol-a retrospective indicator of long-term hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis activation-and whether this link would be mediated by self-reported neighborhood satisfaction. Forty-nine older African Americans were recruited from thirty-nine Detroit census tracts across five strata of census tract adversity. Participants were interviewed face-to-face to collect psychosocial measures. Each provided a hair sample for analysis of cortisol. Multiple regression analyses revealed that higher neighborhood disadvantage was associated with higher levels of hair cortisol levels and that neighborhood satisfaction partially explained this association. These results are the first to our knowledge to demonstrate a direct link between neighborhood disadvantage and hair cortisol in a sample of older adults and to show that self-reported neighborhood satisfaction may be a psychological intermediary of this association.

中文翻译：

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简要报告：老年城市非裔美国人的邻里劣势和头发皮质醇

先前的研究表明，生活在贫困社区与发病率和死亡率的增加有关。然而，研究人员现在正在研究导致邻里不利对健康有害影响的生物学途径。这项研究调查了邻里劣势（即，通过结合社会和建筑环境条件得出的相对邻里质量的衡量标准）是否与毛发皮质醇有关——长期下丘脑垂体肾上腺 (HPA) 轴激活的回顾性指标——以及这种联系是否存在将通过自我报告的邻里满意度来调节。49 名年长的非裔美国人从底特律人口普查区的 5 个逆境层的 39 个底特律人口普查区中招募。参与者接受了面对面的采访，以收集心理社会措施。每个人都提供了用于分析皮质醇的头发样本。多元回归分析显示，较高的邻里劣势与较高水平的头发皮质醇水平相关，邻里满意度部分解释了这种关联。据我们所知，这些结果首次证明了老年人样本中邻里劣势与头发皮质醇之间的直接联系，并表明自我报告的邻里满意度可能是这种关联的心理中介。