Chapman Alexander, Santos-Lozada Alexis R
Department of Sociology and Criminology, The Pennsylvania State University, USA.
Population Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, USA.
SSM Popul Health. 2020 Sep 4;12:100663. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2020.100663. eCollection 2020 Dec.
This study evaluates whether the associations between social integration, inflammation, and depressive symptoms vary by race/ethnicity in the United States. Our study includes 5,634 respondents age 40 and older from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 2005-2008. We fit multivariate logistic regression models with interactions between C-reactive protein (CRP) and race/ethnicity as well as social integration and race/ethnicity to test our hypotheses. We find that social integration and CRP operate independently in their associations with depressive symptoms by race/ethnicity. Higher levels of social integration are associated with lower predicted probability of depressive symptoms for White and Black populations. This association is not statistically significant for the Hispanic population. CRP is associated with depressive symptoms for the White population, but not the Black or Hispanic populations. Our results suggest that studying depressive symptoms, and other mental health outcomes, among the US population without considering variation by race/ethnicity may restrict scholarly understanding of health disparities. Population-based assessments of associations between physiological processes or social integration should consider whether these variables operate differently by race/ethnicity and work to explain why differences may emerge. Furthermore, interventions aimed at social integration may improve mental health among older adults in the United States; especially for the least socially integrated.
本研究评估了在美国社会融合、炎症与抑郁症状之间的关联是否因种族/民族而异。我们的研究纳入了来自2005 - 2008年美国国家健康与营养检查调查的5634名40岁及以上的受访者。我们构建了多变量逻辑回归模型，纳入C反应蛋白（CRP）与种族/民族之间以及社会融合与种族/民族之间的交互作用，以检验我们的假设。我们发现，社会融合和CRP在与按种族/民族划分的抑郁症状的关联中独立起作用。较高水平的社会融合与白人和黑人人群抑郁症状的较低预测概率相关。这种关联在西班牙裔人群中无统计学意义。CRP与白人人群的抑郁症状相关，但与黑人或西班牙裔人群无关。我们的结果表明，在美国人群中研究抑郁症状及其他心理健康结果时，若不考虑种族/民族差异，可能会限制学术界对健康差距的理解。基于人群对生理过程或社会融合之间关联的评估应考虑这些变量在不同种族/民族中是否有不同作用，并努力解释差异可能出现的原因。此外，旨在促进社会融合的干预措施可能会改善美国老年人的心理健康；尤其是对于社会融合程度最低的人群。
