African American adults suffer disproportionately from several non-communicable and infectious diseases. Among numerous contributing factors, perceived discrimination is considered a stressor for members of historically marginalized groups that contributes to health risk, although biological pathways are incompletely understood. Previous studies have reported associations between stress and both an up-regulation of non-specific (innate) inflammation and down-regulation of specific (adaptive) immunity. While associations between perceived discrimination and markers of inflammation have been explored, it is unclear if this is part of an overall shift that also includes down-regulated adaptive immunity. Relying on a large cross-section of African American adults (n = 3,319) from the Jackson Heart Study (JHS) in Jackson, Mississippi, we tested whether perceived everyday and lifetime discrimination as well as perceived burden from lifetime discrimination were associated with counts of neutrophils (innate), monocytes (innate), lymphocytes (adaptive), and the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), derived from complete white blood cell counts with differential. In addition, DNA methylation (DNAm) was measured on the EPIC array in a sub-sample (n = 1,023) of participants, allowing estimation of CD4T, CD8T and B lymphocyte proportions. Unexpectedly, high lifetime discrimination compared to low was significantly associated with lower neutrophils (b : -0.14, [95% CI: -0.24, -0.04]) and a lower NLR (b : -0.15, [95% CI: -0.25, -0.05]) after controlling for confounders. However, high perceived burden from lifetime discrimination was significantly associated with higher neutrophils (b : 0.17, [95% CI: 0.05, 0.30]) and a higher NLR (b : 0.16, [95% CI: 0.03, 0.29]). High perceived burden was also associated with lower lymphocytes among older men, which our analysis suggested might have been attributable to differences in CD4T cells. These findings highlight immune function as a potentially important pathway linking perceived discrimination to health outcomes.

非裔美国成年人不成比例地患有多种非传染性疾病和传染病。在众多影响因素中，感知到的歧视被认为是历史上边缘化群体成员的压力源，会导致健康风险，尽管其生物学途径尚不完全清楚。先前的研究报告了压力与非特异性（先天性）炎症的上调和特异性（适应性）免疫的下调之间的关联。虽然人们已经探索了感知歧视与炎症标志物之间的关联，但尚不清楚这是否是整体转变的一部分，其中还包括适应性免疫的下调。依靠来自密西西比州杰克逊杰克逊心脏研究 (JHS) 的大量非裔美国成年人 (n = 3,319)，我们测试了感知到的日常和终生歧视以及感知到的终生歧视负担是否与中性粒细胞（先天）、单核细胞（先天）、淋巴细胞（适应性）计数以及中性粒细胞与淋巴细胞比率（NLR）相关。全白细胞计数及分类。此外，在 EPIC 阵列上测量了参与者子样本 (n = 1,023) 的 DNA 甲基化 (DNAm)，从而可以估计 CD4T、CD8T 和 B 淋巴细胞的比例。出乎意料的是，与低寿命歧视相比，高寿命歧视与较低的中性粒细胞（b：-0.14，[95％CI：-0.24，-0.04]）和较低的 NLR（b：-0.15，[95％CI：-0.25， -0.05]）在控制混杂因素后。然而，终生歧视造成的高感知负担与中性粒细胞增多显着相关（b：0.17，[95% CI：0.05，0.30]）和更高的 NLR（b：0.16，[95% CI：0.03，0.29]）。高感知负担也与老年男性淋巴细胞较低有关，我们的分析表明这可能归因于 CD4T 细胞的差异。这些发现强调免疫功能是连接感知歧视与健康结果的潜在重要途径。