Stress, Place, and Allostatic Load Among Mexican Immigrant Farmworkers in Oregon

Abstract

Cumulative exposure to chronic stressors has been shown to contribute to immigrants' deteriorating health with more time in US residence. Few studies, however, have examined links among common psychosocial stressors for immigrants (e.g., acculturation-related) and contexts of immigrant settlement for physical health. The study investigated relationships among social stressors, stress buffers (e.g., family support), and allostatic load (AL)--a summary measure of physiological "wear and tear"--among 126 adult Mexican immigrant farm workers. Analyses examined social contributors to AL in two locales: (1) White, English-speaking majority sites, and (2) a Mexican immigrant enclave. Our six-point AL scale incorporated immune, cardiovascular, and metabolic measures. Among men and women, older age predicted higher AL. Among women, lower family support related to higher AL in White majority communities only. Findings suggest that Latino immigrants' cumulative experiences in the US significantly compromise their health, with important differences by community context.

Allostatic load and biological anthropology

“…It is possible allostatic load accumulates too gradually for the stress of teenage alcohol consumption to significantly impact ALI measures during teenage years. However, as previously mentioned, adults do not exhibit positive relationships between allostatic load and alcohol consumption either and, in some samples, the association is negative (Ar evalo et al, 2014;Kusano et al, 2016;McClure et al, 2015;Petrovic et al, 2016).…”

“…Cut-points defined by quartiles Seeman et al (1997Seeman et al ( , 2001Seeman et al ( , 2002, Seeman, Crimmins, et al (2004), Seeman, Glei, et al (2004), Kubzansky et al (1999), Karlamangla et al (2002Karlamangla et al ( , 2014, Schnorpfeil et al (2003), Weinstein et al (2003), Hampson et al (2009), Lipowicz et al (2014, Riva et al (2014), Barboza Solís et al (2015), Gale et al (2015), Horan and Widom (2015), McClure et al (2015), Zilioli et al (2015), Hansen et al (2016), Kusano et al (2016), and Robertson and Watts (2016) Cut-points defined by deciles Goldman et al (2005), Glei et al (2007), and Hwang et al (2014) Cut-points defined using clinical criteria Seeman et al (2008), Hampson et al (2009), Bird et al (2010 and Rosenberg et al (2014) Cut-points defined using a combination of clinical criteria and either deciles or quartiles (2015), Gale et al (2015), and Robertson and Watts (2016) Use of two-tailed cut-points Hampson et al (2009) and Hwang et al (2014) Use of recursive partitioning to calculate allostatic load Gruenewald et al (2006) Allostatic load scored by system rather than by biomarkers Karlamangla et al (2014), Seeman et al (2014), Gay et al (2015), and Zilioli et al (2015) Calculated allostatic...…”

“…In addition, with increasing age, most individuals likely experience more stressful events than those of younger ages. Expectedly, positive relationships of age with allostatic load are observed across samples (Crimmins et al, 2003;Crimmins, Kim, & Seeman, 2009;Dich et al, 2015b;Doamekpor & Dinwiddie, 2015;Karlamangla et al, 2006;McClure et al, 2015;Riva et al, 2014;Robertson & Watts, 2016;Rosenberg et al, 2014;Schnorpfeil et al, 2003;Seeman, Epel, Gruenewald, Karlamangla, & McEwen, 2010;Seeman et al, 2008;Seeman, Merkin, Karlamangla, Koretz, & Seeman, 2014;Upchurch, Rainisch, & Chyu, 2015;Upchurch, Stein, et al, 2015;Vie et al, 2014;Zilioli, Slatcher, Ong, & Gruenewald, 2015). Within age cohorts, however, substantial variation in allostatic load may be observed.…”

“…Dietary components (e.g., alcohol and vegetable intake) influence allostatic load among Japanese women(Kusano et al, 2016). Of general interest, higher alcohol consumption has been shown to be significantly associated with lower allostatic load across several samples(Ar evalo et al, 2014;Kusano et al, 2016;McClure et al, 2015; Petrovic et al, 2016), similar to reductions in CVD associated with moderate alcohol intake.…”

“…,Schnorpfeil et al (2003),Weinstein et al (2003),Hampson et al (2009),Lipowicz et al (2014),Riva et al (2014),Barboza Solís et al (2015),Gale et al (2015),Horan and Widom (2015),McClure et al (2015),Zilioli et al (2015),Hansen et al (2016),Kusano et al (2016), andRobertson and Watts (2016) Cut-points defined by decilesGoldman et al (2005),Glei et al (2007), andHwang et al (2014) Cut-points defined using clinical criteriaSeeman et al (2008), Hampson et al (2009), Bird et al (2010) and Rosenberg et al (2014) Cut-points defined using a combination of clinical criteria and either deciles or quartiles Crimmins et al (2003), Mattei et al (2010), Ar evalo et al (2014), Dich et al (2015b), and Gay et al (2015) Allostatic load adjusted for medication use Hampson et al (2009), Mattei et al (2010), Ar evalo et al (2014), Robertson et al (2014), Doamekpor and Dinwiddie(2015),Gale et al (2015), andRobertson and Watts (2016) Use of two-tailed cut-pointsHampson et al (2009) andHwang et al (2014) Use of recursive partitioning to calculate allostatic loadGruenewald et al (2006) Allostatic load scored by system rather than by biomarkersKarlamangla et al (2014),Seeman et al (2014),Gay et al (2015), andZilioli et al (2015) Calculated allostatic load using z-scoresKobrosly et al (2014),Vie et al (2014), andFernandez et al (2015) Divided allostatic load into "high" versus "low" for analyses (definitions of high and low vary by study)Kubzansky et al (1999),Riva et al (2014),Rosenberg et al (2014),Doamekpor and Dinwiddie (2015), andGay et al (2015) Used sex-specifi...…”