The University of British Columbia, Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), 440 - 2206 East Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z3 Canada.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2013 Mar;38(3):331-40. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2012.06.009. Epub 2012 Jul 17.
This study examined the relationship between children's hair cortisol and socioeconomic status of the family, as measured by parental education and income. Low family socioeconomic status has traditionally been considered a long-term environmental stressor. Measurement of hair cortisol provides an integrated index of cumulative stress exposure across an extended period of time. The present study is the first to examine the relationship between hair cortisol and parental education as well as parental income in a representative sample of preschoolers. Data on hair cortisol, family income, and parental education were collected for a representative sample of 339 children (Mean age=4.6 years; SD=.5 years) from across 23 neighbourhoods of the city of Vancouver, Canada. As maternal education was shown previously to be associated with hair zinc level, hair zinc measurements were included as well in order to explore potential relationships between hair zinc and hair cortisol. The relationship between hair cortisol and parental education was examined using hierarchical regression, with hair zinc, gender, age, and single parenthood included as covariates. Maternal and paternal education both were correlated significantly with hair cortisol (r=-0.18; p=.001). The relationship remained statistically significant even after controlling for all demographic covariates as well as for hair zinc and after taking the neighbourhood-level clustering of the data into account. Parental income, on the other hand, was not related significantly to children's hair cortisol. This study provides evidence that lower maternal and paternal education are associated with higher hair cortisol levels. As hair cortisol provides an integrated index of cortisol exposure over an extended time period, these findings suggest a possibly stable influence of SES on the function of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Cumulative exposure to cortisol during early childhood may be greater in children from low socio-economic backgrounds, possibly through increased exposure to environmental stressors.
本研究考察了儿童头发皮质醇与家庭社会经济地位（以父母教育程度和收入衡量）之间的关系。传统上，低家庭社会经济地位被认为是一种长期的环境应激源。头发皮质醇的测量提供了一个在较长时间内累积应激暴露的综合指标。本研究首次在代表性的学龄前儿童样本中检验了头发皮质醇与父母教育程度以及父母收入之间的关系。在加拿大温哥华市 23 个社区的代表性样本中，共收集了 339 名儿童（平均年龄=4.6 岁；标准差=0.5 岁）的头发皮质醇、家庭收入和父母教育数据。由于先前的研究表明母亲的教育程度与头发锌含量有关，因此还包括了头发锌含量的测量，以探讨头发锌含量与头发皮质醇之间可能存在的关系。使用分层回归分析了头发皮质醇与父母教育程度之间的关系，将头发锌含量、性别、年龄和单亲家庭作为协变量。母亲和父亲的教育程度都与头发皮质醇显著相关（r=-0.18；p=.001）。即使在控制了所有人口统计学协变量以及头发锌含量，并考虑到数据的邻里水平聚类后，这种关系仍然具有统计学意义。另一方面，父母收入与孩子的头发皮质醇无显著相关性。本研究提供了证据表明，较低的母亲和父亲的教育程度与较高的头发皮质醇水平有关。由于头发皮质醇提供了一个在较长时间内皮质醇暴露的综合指标，这些发现表明 SES 对下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）轴功能可能有一个稳定的影响。来自社会经济背景较低的儿童在幼儿期可能会经历更多的皮质醇累积暴露，这可能是由于环境应激源的暴露增加。
