Alfonso L. Campbell

Perceived stress and eating behaviors in a community-based sample of African Americans

Previous studies have reported that psychological stress is associated with greater food consumption, particularly consumption of high fat foods. We are unaware of any studies that have examined stress-induced eating among African Americans (AAs). The goals of the current study were to examine the relationship between perceived stress and high fat eating behaviors in a sample of AAs, to examine whether this relationship is stronger among overweight and obese participants, and to examine whether haphazard meal planning mediates the relationship between perceived stress and high fat eating behaviors. One hundred fifty-nine adults from a metropolitan area completed the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), the Eating Behaviors Pattern Questionnaire (EBPQ), a demographic questionnaire, and body mass was assessed with BMI. Perceived stress was associated with haphazard planning and emotional eating, but not related to other high fat eating domains in the overall sample. These findings held for overweight and obese participants with the addition of snacking on sweets. High fat eating behaviors were not mediated by haphazard meal planning. These findings are consistent with other studies which demonstrate a link between stress and eating. Long-term interventions for high fat consumption and obesity should include an examination of perceived stress among AAs.

Verbal Pragmatics Following Unilateral Stroke: Emotional Content and Valence

Verbal pragmatic aspects of discourse production were examined in 16 right brain-damaged (RBD), 16 left brain-damaged (LBD), and 16 normal control right-handed adults. The facilitation effect of emotional content, valence hypothesis, and relationship between pragmatics and emotion were evaluated. Participants produced monologues while recollecting emotional and nonemotional experiences. Transcribed monologues were rated for appropriateness on 6 pragmatic features: conciseness, lexical selection, quantity, relevancy, specificity, and topic maintenance. Overall, brain-damaged groups were rated as significantly less appropriate than normals. Consistent with the facilitation effect, emotional content enhanced pragmatic performance of LBD aphasic participants yet suppressed performance of RBD participants. Contrary to the valence hypothesis, RBD participants were more impaired for positive emotions and LBD participants for negative emotions. Pragmatic appropriateness was not strongly correlated with a measure of emotional intensity.

Dispositional depression and hostility are associated with inflammatory markers of cardiovascular disease in African Americans

Prior research has demonstrated that state depressive symptoms and hostility can modulate inflammatory immune responses and directly contribute to cardiovascular disease (CVD) onset and development. Previous studies have not considered the contribution of dispositional depressive symptoms to the inflammatory process. They have also largely excluded African Americans, despite their disproportionate risk for CVD. The first aim of the study was to examine the impact of state and dispositional depression and hostility on CVD-associated inflammatory biomarkers interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP) in an African American sample. The second aim was to examine synergistic influences of hostility and state and dispositional depression on IL-6 and CRP. The final aim was to examine whether the relations between state and dispositional depression, hostility, IL-6, and CRP varied as a function of gender and education. Anthropometric measures, blood serum samples, and psychosocial data were collected from 198 African Americans from the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Hierarchical and stepwise regression analyses indicated that (1) increased levels of hostility were associated with increased levels of CRP; (2) hostility and IL-6 were more strongly associated among participants with lower educational attainment; and (3) dispositional depression and CRP were more strongly associated among participants with greater hostility and lower educational attainment. Findings suggest that enduring personality dispositions, such as dispositional depression and hostility, are critical to a thorough assessment of cardiovascular profiles in African Americans. Future studies should investigate causal pathways that link depressive and hostile personality styles to inflammatory activity for African American men and women.

Handedness Incidence in a Population of Black University Students

A modified version of the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory was used to assess degrees of left-, mixed-, and right-handedness in USA and Caribbean black university students. The distributional pattern of handedness in men and women was significantly different, largely due to a higher incidence of left- and mixed-handed men. Sinistral incidence in men of this population was significantly higher than that reported in some other studies on Anglo-Saxon populations.

Psychometric Aspects of Verbal Pragmatic Ratings

This study examined the psychometric aspects of a verbal pragmatic rating scale. The scale contained six pragmatic features (i.e., Conciseness, Lexical Selection, Quantity, Relevancy, Specificity, and Topic Maintenance) based on Grices cooperative principles. Fifteen right brain-damaged (RBD), 15 left brain-damaged (LBD), and 16 healthy normal control (NC) right-handed adult participants produced narratives while recollecting emotional and nonemotional experiences. Naive raters evaluated each pragmatic feature for appropriateness on a 5-point Likert scale. When reliability was examined, the overall internal consistency of the pragmatic scale was extremely high (alpha =.96). Factor analysis was conducted to examine the theoretical relations among the six pragmatic features. Three meaningful factors involving discourse content, conceptual unity, and parsimony were identified. Findings are discussed in light of Grices model and the construct validity of the scale.

Depressive symptomatology and respiratory sinus arrhythmia in a non-clinical sample of middle-aged African Americans

Decreased heart rate variability and depression are both independent risk factors for cardiac mortality in clinical and non-clinical samples. The purpose of the current study is to examine the hypothesis that severity of depressive symptomatology is inversely associated with respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in a non-clinical sample of African Americans. The sample included 77 African Americans with a mean age of 48.4 (SD = 11.7). Participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) and a 5-min resting baseline measurement of RSA was collected. The BDI-II total score was positively associated with RSA (β = .334, p = .008). Given the unexpected direction of the association, we separated the BDI-II into cognitive and somatic affective subscales to identify which construct was driving the relationship. The somatic affective, was related to RSA (β = .328, p = .010), but not the cognitive subscale. Given this unexpected positive result, future research should further examine the nature of the relationship between depressive symptomatology and RSA in African Americans, as the relationship may vary based on levels of depressive symptomatology.

The influence of functional social support on executive functioning in middle-aged African Americans

ABSTRACT Social support has a positive influence on cognitive functioning and buffers cognitive decline in older adults. This study examined the relations between social support and executive functioning in middle-aged adults. A community-based sample of African Americans completed the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List, a measure of functions of social support, and two measures of executive functioning, the Stroop Color and Word Test and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Hierarchical regression analyses were used to explore the hypothesis that different facets of perceived social support influence performance on measures of executive functioning. After controlling for age, gender, and education, social support facets including belonging support, selfesteem support, appraisal support, and tangible support were significant predictors of Stroop performance. In addition, tangible support significantly predicted WCST performance. These findings add to previous literature on social support and cognition; however, findings for middle-aged adults are unique and suggest that social support has a positive influence on some executive functions in African Americans prior to old age.

Exaggerated vasopressor response to exercise and cerebral blood flow velocity.

We studied 10 young adults, normotensive at rest, comprising a control group (n = 5) with normal blood pressure responsiveness to exercise and an experimental group exhibiting greater percentage of body fat and body mass index (BMI) than the controls, with exaggerated blood pressure (vasopressor) responsiveness to exercise (EEBPR) (n = 5). Lower absolute and varying oxygen consumption/body weight normalized units of middle cerebral arterial blood flow velocity (MCAV) were found during exercise in the experimental group (P < .01). These findings support the hypothesis that the combination of EEBPR and high BMI is associated with low MCAV that may put such individuals at risk for cerebral hypoperfusion and cognitive deficits.

Factors Associated with Exercise Motivation among African-American Men

ObjectiveThe primary aims of this study were to: (1) characterize exercise stages of change among a sample of African-American men, (2) determine if exercise motivation was associated with self-reported exercise behavior, and (3) examine if groups of personal (i.e., age, BMI, income, educational attainment, and perceived health), psycho-social (i.e., exercise self-efficacy, personality type, social influence), and environmental factors (i.e., neighborhood safety) predicted stages of change for physical exercise among African-American men.MethodsOne hundred seventy African-American male participants were recruited for this study (age: 47.63(10.23) years). Participants completed a self-report questionnaire assessing study variables. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to examine the association of exercise stages of change with an array of personal, psychosocial, and environmental factors.ResultsBMI, exercise self-efficacy, and nighttime neighborhood safety were entered as independent variables in the full model. BMI and exercise self-efficacy continued to be significant predictors of exercise stages of change in the full model. Obese men had a 9.24 greater odds of being in the action stage of change than in the maintenance stage. Also, men reporting greater exercise self-efficacy had lower odds of being in the lower stages of change categories (pre-preparation, preparation, and action) than in the maintenance stage.ConclusionOur results confirmed that using an ecological framework explained more of the variance in exercise stages of change than any of the individual components alone. Information gleaned from this study could inform interventionists of the best ways to create tailored exercise programs for African-American men.

Psychometric properties of the Cook Medley hostility scale and its association with inflammatory markers in African Americans.

Dispositional hostility as measured by the Cook Medley Hostility (Ho) Scale has been associated with inflammation and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. There is evidence that suggests that factors of hostility are more useful in predicting poor cardiovascular health outcomes than a single hostility construct. The purpose of this study was to investigate the latent factors of hostility and their association with inflammatory markers interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP) in an African-American community sample. This racial/ethnic group has been largely excluded from this line of research despite their disproportionate burden of CVD and its risk factors. Blood samples for plasma IL-6 and CRP were collected on the same day the Ho Scale was administered. Plasma IL-6 and CRP levels were determined using enzymatic-linked immunosorbent assay. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed three latent main factors of hostility: Neuroticism, Manichaeism and Moral Primitiveness, and seven intermediary subfactors. Of the subfactors, hostile affect was significantly associated with greater CRP levels and predatory self interest was significantly associated with greater IL-6 levels. Findings suggest that African Americans have a unique pattern of hostility and two latent subfactors are associated with a marker of CVD. Based on the findings, future studies should aim to further delineate how hostility influences health outcomes in African Americans.