Diversity Supplement to Psychosocial Stress due to COVID-19 and Vascular Aging in African-American Women

项目总结 新型冠状病毒病2019年(新冠肺炎)的全球大流行可以说是最具破坏性的 上个世纪的公共卫生危机。在美国，非洲裔美国人一直不成比例 受影响，总体感染率和死亡率比白人高2至4倍。 此外，作为关闭非必要企业和其他实体的直接结果， 失业率和就业不足也大幅上升，非洲裔美国人更有可能 而不是报告由于疫情而就业不足或被迫休假的白人。毫不奇怪，考虑到种族因素 新冠肺炎死亡率的差异，全国民调也发现与新冠肺炎相关的报告存在种族差异 损失，非裔美国人更频繁地亲自报告认识死于 新冠肺炎胜过白葡萄酒。正因为如此，有人认为，由于新冠肺炎，非洲- 美国人正在经历一场“压力大流行”，这将对他们的健康产生“危险的影响”。 以及在病毒本身被控制很久之后的幸福。利用我们之前资助的队列 评估早期中年非裔美国女性的心理社会压力和血管老化，我们有一个 史无前例的机会来研究压力因素在多大程度上是由 新冠肺炎大流行可能会影响血管疾病-美国的头号杀手-在这一群体中。 中年非裔美国女性可能是一个特别重要的群体，因为：1)她们 与其他种族性别群体相比，血管疾病的发病率越来越高，但人们对此知之甚少； 2)普遍存在的金融、就业和社会压力的长期影响 新冠肺炎可能对非裔美国女性特别有害，主要是由于结构性和 在大流行之前的背景不平等。拟议的项目将审查 总体心理社会压力来源(债务、经济压力、工作压力、人际关系不礼貌和虐待， 孤独感)，COVID特有的压力源(COVID相关的经济困难，COVID特有的育儿压力， COVID相关损失)和血管老化的预期变化(动态血压、动脉僵硬、 在350名非洲裔美国中年妇女的队列中进行了超过24个月的研究。因为我们有 对一系列心理社会应激源进行的冠状病毒感染前评估，拟议工作的一个主要创新是 我们检查COVID前后暴露在整体心理社会压力下的能力如何变化 可能会对血管老化产生预期影响。重要的是，我们将利用集团内部可观的 在我们的队列中的异质性，以检查我们的任何假设的关联是否被前 COVID评估了可能增加脆弱性的社会人口因素(社会经济地位，单身 父母身份、婚姻状况)或适应能力(例如，生活目标、乐观、掌握、社会支持) 心理社会压力，以便为短期和长期预防工作提供信息。

PROJECT SUMMARY The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic is arguably one of the most devastating Public Health crises of the last century. In the United States, African-Americans have been disproportionately impacted, with overall rates of infection and mortality 2 to 4 times higher than those observed in Whites. Additionally, as a direct result of closings of non-essential businesses and other entities, rates of unemployment and underemployment have also surged, and African-Americans are significantly more likely than Whites to report being underemployed or furloughed due to the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, given racial disparities in COVID-19 mortality, national polls have also found racial differences in reports of COVID-related loss, with African-Americans more frequently reporting personally knowing someone who has died from COVID-19 than Whites. Because of this, it has been argued that, as a result of COVID-19, African- Americans are experiencing a “pandemic of stress” that will have a “dangerous impact” on their health and well-being long after the virus itself has been contained. Leveraging our previously funded cohort that assessed psychosocial stress and vascular aging in early middle-aged African-American women, we have an unprecedented opportunity to examine the degree to which stressors resulting from, and related to, the COVID-19 pandemic might impact vascular disease—the number 1 killer in the US-in this group. Middle-aged African-American women may be a uniquely important group on which to focus, because: 1) they have increasingly high, but poorly understood, rates of vascular disease relative to other race-gender groups; and 2) the long-term impact of the widespread financial, employment and social stressors resulting from COVID-19 might be particularly deleterious for African-American women, largely due to structural and contextual inequalities that pre-dated the pandemic itself. The proposed project will examine linkages between overall psychosocial stressors (debt, financial stress, job stress, interpersonal incivilities and mistreatment, loneliness), COVID-specific stressors (COVID-related financial difficulties, COVID-specific parenting stressors, COVID-related loss) and prospective changes in vascular aging (ambulatory blood pressure, arterial stiffness, inflammation) over 24 months in a cohort of 350 middle-aged African-American women. Because we have pre-COVID assessments of a range of psychosocial stressors, a major innovation of the proposed work is our ability to examine how pre- versus post-COVID changes in exposure to overall psychosocial stress might prospectively impact vascular aging. Importantly, we will capitalize on the considerable within-group heterogeneity in our cohort, to examine whether any of our hypothesized associations are moderated by pre- COVID assessed sociodemographic factors that might increase vulnerability (socioeconomic status, single parenthood, marital status) or resilience (e.g., purpose in life, optimism, mastery, social support) to psychosocial stress, in order to inform short- and long-term prevention efforts.