Examining the crossover effects of adolescent stress on parent cardiovascular health

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the leading causes of death in the US that disproportionally affects minorities and low-income individuals. The risk for and course of CVD is affected by social factors such as daily stressors (i.e., interpersonal conflicts and demands). Daily stressors and strong reactivity to stressors (stronger affective responses to daily stress) are strong predictors of CVD and two risk factors for CVD: higher cardiometabolic risk and inflammation. One central source of daily stress during midlife is parenting, and many parents and their children report increased stress during adolescence. The daily stressors of adolescents can crossover to affect the health of their parents. Our preliminary studies have found that on days when adolescents experience stressors, their parents are more likely to experience negative affect, physical symptoms (i.e., headaches, flu-like symptoms), and unhealthy physiological responses to stress (i.e., high cortisol) that same day. However, little is known about how adolescent stress can crossover to affect their parents’ long-term CVD risk. Such knowledge is critical given that adolescent stress may be a driver of poor parent health and developing interventions to interrupt crossover processes may be an important avenue to reduce parents’ risk for CVD. In this study, we test the associations between adolescent daily stressors and two risk factors for their parents’ CVD: parent cardiometabolic risk and inflammation. We use three unique samples of parent-child dyads (n=718) with different demographic profiles to (a) test if our findings are replicable on different populations and (b) identify important socioeconomic (SES), racial, ethnic, and sex disparities in the crossover effects of adolescent stress on parents’ CVD risk. Using both secondary data and new primary data collection, in Aim 1 we identify the crossover effects of adolescent stress on parent health by testing whether (a) adolescent daily stressors (stressor exposure, severity, emotional responses) and (b) parent reactivity to adolescent stressors predict parent cardiometabolic risk and inflammation concurrently and longitudinally. In Aim 2 we identify the psycho-cognitive (psychological distress, worry, perseverative thinking), social (parent-child warmth and conflict, parent loneliness), and behavioral factors (sleep) that mediate the crossover effects of adolescent daily stressors on parent cardiometabolic risk and inflammation. In Aim 3 we identify health disparities by testing whether the associations tested in Aims 1 and 2 are moderated by parent socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, and adolescent biological sex. Public Health Impact: This project will identify (a) how adolescent stress impacts parent cardiometabolic risk and inflammation, (b) the modifiable psycho-cognitive, social, and behavioral mechanisms underlying these associations, and (c) socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, and sex disparities in these processes. Findings will lead to the design of a future parenting intervention to help parents respond to adolescent stress in ways that promote parent health. Project Number: 1R01HL174680-01A1 | Fiscal Year: 2025 | NIH Institute/Center: National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) | Principal Investigator: Melissa Lippold | Institution: UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL, CHAPEL HILL, NC | Award Amount: $696,945 | Activity Code: R01 | Study Section: Social Psychology, Personality and Interpersonal Processes Study Section[SPIP] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/1R01HL17468001A1