The biological embedding of adversity and inequity: Examining the physiological impacts of discrimination and poverty on ethnically and economically minoritized youths

Abstract

Structural and social inequities have long been recognized as major contributors to mental and physical health problems. The biological embedding hypothesis, or the idea of “stress getting under the skin,” suggests that these adverse effects are conveyed through neurobiological mechanisms. Yet, we are in the early stages of empirical examination of the diverse and complex ways in which inequities can affect psychophysiological development. In this presentation, I will review recent and new research by my colleagues, students and I that utilizes the California Families Project, an ongoing longitudinal study of a large sample of Mexican-origin families in California that began when target youths were in Grade 5 and has followed these youths into emerging adulthood. Although adolescence often is considered a period of prime physical health, these studies document the associations of multiple structural and social determinants of health, including family poverty, peer discrimination, school violence, neighborhood conditions, and pollutant exposure, with the functioning of multiple neurobiological systems, including the brain, adrenocortical system, autonomic nervous system, and immune system. Collectively, this evidence reveals that the pervasive and pernicious influences of structural and social inequities on neurobiological development are evident within adolescence, which may portend and convey risk for a breadth of health problems across adulthood.