Recent research has linked early life stress (ELS), such as trauma exposure, with early puberty. Early puberty has also been identified as a risk factor for poor mental health outcomes. However, these two paths have primarily been examined independently. In addition, more studies have examined these associations in girls than boys, and findings for boys remain mixed. We hypothesized that early puberty (relative to peers) would be positively associated with both prior trauma exposure and concurrent anxiety symptoms. We anticipated that these associations might differ by sex. We tested these hypotheses within a cross-sectional sample of 133 8- to 13-year-old Black girls and boys with trauma exposure. The association between trauma and pubertal acceleration was sex-specific: it was positive for girls and negative for boys. We stratified subsequent analyses by sex. Regression analyses indicated that early puberty relative to peers predicted more anxiety symptoms for girls but not boys, after accounting for trauma exposure. A statistical mediation analysis indicated that, for girls, the positive association between trauma exposure and anxiety was partially mediated by pubertal acceleration. These results indicate that trauma exposure may have sex-specific effects on pubertal acceleration and anxiety risk in Black children. We also found that, for girls, trauma may increase risk for adverse outcomes by prompting earlier puberty, which is linked to higher anxiety. These findings are consistent with cascading effects of trauma across development, and highlight the need for further study of sex-specific mechanisms.

中文翻译：

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黑人儿童创伤暴露、青春期时间和焦虑之间的性别特异性关联


最近的研究将早期生活压力（ELS）（例如创伤暴露）与青春期提前联系起来。青春期提前也被认为是心理健康状况不佳的一个危险因素。然而，这两条路径主要是独立研究的。此外，更多的研究在女孩中检验了这些关联，而对男孩的研究结果仍然好坏参半。我们假设青春期提前（相对于同龄人）与先前的创伤经历和并发的焦虑症状呈正相关。我们预计这些关联可能因性别而异。我们在 133 名经历过创伤的 8 至 13 岁黑人女孩和男孩的横截面样本中测试了这些假设。创伤与青春期加速之间的关联具有性别特异性：对女孩而言呈正相关，对男孩而言呈负相关。我们按性别对后续分析进行了分层。回归分析表明，在考虑了创伤暴露后，相对于同龄人来说，青春期提前预示着女孩会出现更多的焦虑症状，而男孩则不会。统计中介分析表明，对于女孩来说，创伤暴露与焦虑之间的正相关部分是由青春期加速介导的。这些结果表明，创伤暴露可能对黑人儿童的青春期加速和焦虑风险具有性别特异性影响。我们还发现，对于女孩来说，创伤可能会导致青春期提前，从而增加不良后果的风险，而青春期提前又与更高的焦虑有关。这些发现与创伤在整个发育过程中的级联效应一致，并强调需要进一步研究性别特异性机制。