Clinical trial NCT05820659: Racial Discrimination and Stress Response
Official title: Racial Discrimination and Dysregulated Stress Response: Risk/Protective Factors
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Stress Reaction; Acute
Keywords: cardiovascular reactivity
hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis
inflammatory mediator
subtle racism
Lead sponsor: Western Kentucky University
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2023-04-20
Enrollment: 144
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 9
Maximum age (years): 69
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: The goal of this study is to learn about whether ethnic minority adolescents' racial discrimination experience is related to dysregulated biological responses to subtle racism, and how the relationship may be attenuated or exacerbated by a set of social and cognitive factors. The main questions it aims to answer are:

* to reveal the relationship between racial discrimination experiences and ethnic minority adolescents' stress response to subtle racism
* to test parental ethnic-racial socialization, children's attribution to subtle racism and their racial identity as potential risk and protective factors.

Detailed description: Racial discrimination experiences constitute significant risks for ethnic minority youth's physical and mental health problems. One explanation poses that chronic stress can lead to altered, dysregulated stress responses, which can make individuals susceptible to health problems. Currently, there is no experimental study that comprehensively measure ethnic minority youth's stress response to subtle racism, or investigate the contributing roles of racial discrimination experience and possible risk and protective factors.

A community sample of 9-14-year-old ethnic minority adolescents (40 Latino American, 40 Black/African American) and their parents will be recruited. The study employs an adapted peer rejection task which has been widely used with youth, and carefully designed to elicit the experience of subtle racial discrimination from White peers. Adolescents' cardiovascular activity and saliva samples will be taken at multiple time points before, during, and after the peer rejection task, tapping on response involving hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, autonomic nervous system (ANS), and inflammatory mediator (IM). Adolescents will report their racial discrimination experience, make attribution about the peer rejection experience, report emotional experience, and rate their racial identity. Adolescents will complete an impossible puzzle task to elicit cognitive stress, during which they will be asked to fit all puzzle pieces into a wooden frame with a wrong piece provided. Their cardiovascular activity, attribution, and emotional experience in response to the impossible puzzle task will be measured. Parents will complete a questionnaire to report their ethnic-racial socialization practices.

The goals of this proposal are: 1) Reveal the relationship between racial discrimination experiences and ethnic minority adolescents' stress response to subtle racism as well as to cognitive stress; and 2) Test parental ethnic-racial socialization, children's attribution to subtle racism and their racial identity as potential risk and protective factors.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* 9-14 years old
* identified as Latino American or Black/African American
* Living in Warren county of Kentucky
* Parents of eligible adolescents

Exclusion Criteria:

Adolescents will not participate in the peer rejection task when they report to have:

* frequent experiences of peer victimization
* frequent experiences of racial discrimination
* severe depression
* severe social anxiety disorder
* severe generalized anxiety disorder

Primary outcomes:
measure: change in blood pressure for peer rejection
timeFrame: participants' blood pressure will be continuously monitored 5 minute before, during, and 45 minutes after the peer rejection task.
measure: change in stress hormones for peer rejection
timeFrame: participants' salivary samples will be collected at five time points (right before, 5 minutes after, 15 minutes after, 30 minutes after, and 45 minutes after the peer rejection task)
measure: change in inflammatory biomarker of Interleukin 6 for peer rejection
timeFrame: participants' salivary samples will be collected at five time points (right before, 5 minutes after, 15 minutes after, 30 minutes after, and 45 minutes after the peer rejection task)
measure: change in inflammatory biomarker of C-reactive protein for peer rejection
timeFrame: participants' salivary samples will be collected at five time points (right before, 5 minutes after, 15 minutes after, 30 minutes after, and 45 minutes after the peer rejection task)
measure: attribution about the peer rejection for peer rejection
timeFrame: right after the peer rejection task
measure: emotional experience for peer rejection
timeFrame: right after the peer rejection task
measure: change in skin conductance activity for peer rejection
timeFrame: participants' skin conductance will be continuously monitored 5 minutes before, during, and 45 minutes after the peer rejection task
measure: change in respiratory sinus arrhythmia for peer rejection
timeFrame: participants' electrocardiogram data will be continuously monitored 5 minutes before, during, and 45 minutes after the peer rejection task
Secondary outcomes:
measure: change in cardiovascular activity for impossible puzzle
timeFrame: participants' systolic and diastolic blood pressure will be continuously monitored 5 minutes before, during, and 15 minutes after the impossible puzzle task
measure: attribution for impossible puzzle
timeFrame: right after the impossible puzzle task
measure: emotional experience for impossible puzzle
timeFrame: right after the impossible puzzle task
measure: change in skin conductance for impossible puzzle
timeFrame: participants' skin conductance will be continuously monitored 6 minutes before, during, and 15 minutes after the impossible puzzle task
measure: change in respiratory sinus arrhythmia for impossible puzzle
timeFrame: participants' electrocardiogram data will be continuously monitored 6 minutes before, during, and 15 minutes after the impossible puzzle task
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Bowling Green
country: United States
facility: Western Kentucky University
state: Kentucky
Study officials:
affiliation: Western Kentucky University
name: Qingfang Song, Ph.D
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Lucas T, Wegner R, Pierce J, Lumley MA, Laurent HK, Granger DA. Perceived Discrimination, Racial Identity, and Multisystem Stress Response to Social Evaluative Threat Among African American Men and Women. Psychosom Med. 2017 Apr;79(3):293-305. doi: 10.1097/PSY.0000000000000406.
citation: Silk JS, Stroud LR, Siegle GJ, Dahl RE, Lee KH, Nelson EE. Peer acceptance and rejection through the eyes of youth: pupillary, eyetracking and ecological data from the Chatroom Interact task. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2012 Jan;7(1):93-105. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsr044. Epub 2011 Jul 20.
citation: Sladek MR, Castro SA, Doane LD. Ethnic-Racial discrimination experiences predict Latinx adolescents' physiological stress processes across college transition. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2021 Jun;128:105212. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2021.105212. Epub 2021 Apr 1.