McWood Leanna M, Erath Stephen A, Hinnant Ben, El-Sheikh Mona
North Dakota State University, USA.
Auburn University, USA.
J Health Psychol. 2025 Jan 7:13591053241310165. doi: 10.1177/13591053241310165.
Discrimination (unfair treatment due to group membership) is relatively common among adolescents and has been linked to poor sleep and physical health. Individual differences in physiological functioning may moderate these associations. A sample of 323 youth (48% boys, 52% girls; 58.5% White, 40.9% Black, = 17.38 years, SD = 10.18 months) participated. Adolescents reported on discrimination and health, wore actigraphs to measure sleep, and came to the laboratory to assess respiratory sinus arrythmia reactivity (RSA-R) to two stressful tasks. Results indicate that discrimination was directly associated with health. Furthermore, discrimination interacted with RSA-R to predict sleep and health. Discrimination was related to more sleep activity and poorer health when RSA increased relative to baseline (augmentation), and better sleep quality (higher efficiency, fewer long wake episodes), when RSA decreased relative to baseline (suppression). Findings support the importance of examining physiological regulation as a protective/vulnerability factor when attempting to explicate relations between discrimination and health.
歧视（因群体成员身份而受到的不公平待遇）在青少年中相对普遍，并且与睡眠质量差和身体健康不佳有关。生理功能的个体差异可能会调节这些关联。研究样本包括323名青少年（48%为男孩，52%为女孩；58.5%为白人，40.9%为黑人；平均年龄17.38岁，标准差10.18个月）。青少年报告了他们所遭受的歧视情况和健康状况，佩戴活动记录仪来测量睡眠，并前往实验室评估对两项应激任务的呼吸性窦性心律不齐反应性（RSA-R）。结果表明，歧视与健康直接相关。此外，歧视与RSA-R相互作用，共同预测睡眠和健康状况。当RSA相对于基线增加（增强）时，歧视与更多的睡眠活动和更差的健康状况有关；而当RSA相对于基线降低（抑制）时，歧视与更好的睡眠质量（更高的效率、更少的长时间觉醒发作）有关。研究结果支持了在试图阐明歧视与健康之间的关系时，将生理调节作为一个保护/脆弱性因素进行研究的重要性。
