Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, 72701, USA.
Dalla Lana Social of Public Health, University of Toronto, 27 Kings College Circle, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A1, Canada.
J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2023 Oct;10(5):2081-2092. doi: 10.1007/s40615-022-01388-2. Epub 2022 Aug 15.
Although increased attention has been placed on the potential deleterious consequences of paternal incarceration on maternal health, little empirical research has attempted to understand the physiological processes that might underlie this relationship. Moreover, exposure to incarceration and access to resources that shape family incarceration patterns are unequally distributed across racial and ethnic lines, yet few studies utilize analytic frameworks that account for this social reality. Using a within race/ethnicity analytic framework, the present study addresses these gaps by examining relationships between paternal incarceration and telomere length for Black, Latina/o, and White mothers.
Data were drawn from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal, stratified multistage probability sample of couples and children in 20 large U.S. cities. The final analytic sample consisted of 2174 mothers that were followed from pregnancy to age 9 of the focal child.
Findings revealed exposure to paternal incarceration was negatively associated with telomere length for Black mothers, but not for Latina/o and White mothers. Mediation analysis also showed paternal incarceration-telomere length relationships did not operate through secondary stressors, such as economic instability, poor mental health, and parenting stress.
Overall, results demonstrated that the detrimental physiological consequences of paternal incarceration for mothers depended on racial and ethnic background. Findings from this study can provide a foundation upon which health scholars and criminal justice stakeholders may better understand whether and how paternal incarceration shapes deleterious health patterns for the mothers who remain to care for the children of those incarcerated.
尽管人们越来越关注父亲入狱对母亲健康可能产生的有害后果，但很少有实证研究试图了解可能构成这种关系的生理过程。此外，入狱经历的暴露和塑造家庭入狱模式的资源获取在种族和族裔群体中分布不均，但很少有研究利用考虑到这一社会现实的分析框架。本研究使用基于种族/族裔的分析框架，通过检查父亲入狱与黑人、拉丁裔和白人母亲端粒长度之间的关系来填补这些空白。
数据来自脆弱家庭和儿童福利研究，这是一项针对 20 个美国大城市的夫妇和儿童的纵向、分层多阶段概率抽样研究。最终的分析样本包括 2174 名母亲，她们从怀孕到孩子 9 岁时一直被跟踪。
研究结果表明，父亲入狱经历与黑人母亲的端粒长度呈负相关，但与拉丁裔和白人母亲的端粒长度无关。中介分析还表明，父亲入狱与端粒长度的关系并不通过经济不稳定、心理健康状况不佳和育儿压力等次要压力因素起作用。
总体而言，研究结果表明，父亲入狱对母亲的有害生理后果取决于种族和族裔背景。本研究的结果可以为健康学者和刑事司法利益相关者提供一个基础，使他们更好地理解父亲入狱是否以及如何为那些仍需照顾入狱子女的母亲塑造有害的健康模式。
