Family socioeconomic status and child telomere length among the Samburu of Kenya

Belinda L Needham; Bilinda Straight; Charles E Hilton; Charles Owuor Olungah; Jue Lin

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114182

Family socioeconomic status and child telomere length among the Samburu of Kenya

Soc Sci Med. 2021 Aug:283:114182. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114182. Epub 2021 Jul 1.

Authors

Belinda L Needham¹, Bilinda Straight², Charles E Hilton³, Charles Owuor Olungah⁴, Jue Lin⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology and Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health, University of Michigan, USA. Electronic address: needhamb@umich.edu.
² Department of Gender and Women's Studies, Western Michigan University, USA.
³ Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA.
⁴ Institute of Anthropology, Gender and African Studies, University of Nairobi, Kenya.
⁵ Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, USA.

PMID: 34225037
DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114182

Abstract

Previous research in high-income countries suggests that children from families with lower socioeconomic status (SES) tend to have shorter telomere length - a biomarker of stress and cell aging - than children from families with greater social and economic resources. However, little is known about predictors of child telomere length in low-income settings. Data for the current study are from a sample of 214 Samburu children aged 1-9 years. The Samburu are semi-nomadic pastoralists who live in the Rift Valley of north-central Kenya. Samburu livelihood is based primarily on livestock, and polygynous marriage is common. Drawing on prior ethnographic research, we measured 14 culturally relevant indicators of family SES, including mother's education, head of household's education, whether the child is currently attending school, household spending, mother's employment history, head of household's employment history, mother's perceived wealth, whether the child lives in a modern house, livestock holdings (total, cows, sheep/goats, and camels), mother's wife number, and whether the child lives in a polygynous household. Telomere length was measured in salivary DNA by the quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) method. Using latent class analysis, we identified four groups of children that are similar based on the 14 indicators of family SES: Lower SES; Middle SES, Traditional; Middle SES, Modern; and Higher SES. SES classes were not significantly associated with child telomere length. In models examining individual indicators of SES, we found that telomere length was 0.57 standard deviations greater for children who lived in families in the lowest quartile of total livestock holdings compared to those in the highest quartile (b = 0.57, p = 0.03). While additional research is needed to identify the mechanisms underlying this counterintuitive finding, the current study highlights the importance of cultural context in shaping the social gradient in health.

Keywords: Children; Kenya; Samburu; Socioeconomic status; Telomere length.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Cattle
Child
Educational Status
Family
Female
Humans
Kenya
Sheep
Social Class*
Socioeconomic Factors
Telomere*