A dyadic longitudinal analysis of parent-adolescent inflammation trends and the role of shared socioeconomic characteristics on family inflammation

Sarah Rocha; Julienne E Bower; Jessica J Chiang; Steve W Cole; Michael R Irwin; Teresa Seeman; Andrew J Fuligni

doi:10.1016/j.bbih.2024.100767

A dyadic longitudinal analysis of parent-adolescent inflammation trends and the role of shared socioeconomic characteristics on family inflammation

Brain Behav Immun Health. 2024 Apr 4:38:100767. doi: 10.1016/j.bbih.2024.100767. eCollection 2024 Jul.

Authors

Sarah Rocha¹, Julienne E Bower^{1

2}, Jessica J Chiang³, Steve W Cole^{2

4}, Michael R Irwin^{1

2

4}, Teresa Seeman⁵, Andrew J Fuligni^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Psychology, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
² University of California, Los Angeles, Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
³ Georgetown University, Department of Psychology, Washington, D.C., 20057, USA.
⁴ University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
⁵ University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine, Division of Geriatrics, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.

Abstract

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the interdependency of parent-adolescent inflammation trends across time and to examine whether shared family socioeconomic characteristics explained between-family differences in parents' and adolescents' risk for inflammation. A total of N = 348 families, consisting of one parent and one adolescent child, were followed every two years in a three-wave longitudinal study. Sociodemographic questionnaires were used to determine parental educational attainment and family income-to-needs ratio (INR). At each time point, parents and adolescents collected dried blood spot (DBS) samples that were assayed for circulating CRP and log-transformed prior to analysis by longitudinal dyadic models. Models revealed significant differences in parents' and adolescents' inflammation trends over time (b_int = - 0.13, p < 0.001). While parental CRP levels remained relatively stable across the study period, adolescent CRP increased by approximately 38% between study waves. Parents' average CRP levels were positively correlated with adolescents' average CRP (r = 0.32, p < 0.001), but parental change in CRP over time was not significantly related to change in adolescents' CRP over time. Family dyads with higher parental educational attainment had lower average CRP (b = -0.08, p = 0.01), but parental education did not predict change in dyads' inflammation over time. Study findings suggest that shared family socioeconomic characteristics contribute to baseline similarities in parents' and adolescents' inflammation and potentially point to adolescence as a period of inflammatory change where youth may diverge from parental inflammation trends.

Keywords: C-reactive protein; Dyadic modeling; Family dependency; Inflammation; Socioeconomic status.