Nathan S. Consedine

Comparing genetic ancestry and self-described race in African Americans born in the United States and in Africa

Genetic association studies can be used to identify factors that may contribute to disparities in disease evident across different racial and ethnic populations. However, such studies may not account for potential confounding if study populations are genetically heterogeneous. Racial and ethnic classifications have been used as proxies for genetic relatedness. We investigated genetic admixture and developed a questionnaire to explore variables used in constructing racial identity in two cohorts: 50 African Americans and 40 Nigerians. Genetic ancestry was determined by genotyping 107 ancestry informative markers. Ancestry estimates calculated with maximum likelihood estimation were compared with population stratification detected with principal components analysis. Ancestry was approximately 95% west African, 4% European, and 1% Native American in the Nigerian cohort and 83% west African, 15% European, and 2% Native American in the African American cohort. Therefore, self-identification as African American agreed well with inferred west African ancestry. However, the cohorts differed significantly in mean percentage west African and European ancestries (P < 0.0001) and in the variance for individual ancestry (P ≤ 0.01). Among African Americans, no set of questionnaire items effectively estimated degree of west African ancestry, and self-report of a high degree of African ancestry in a three-generation family tree did not accurately predict degree of African ancestry. Our findings suggest that self-reported race and ancestry can predict ancestral clusters but do not reveal the extent of admixture. Genetic classifications of ancestry may provide a more objective and accurate method of defining homogenous populations for the investigation of specific population-disease associations. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2008;17(6):1329–38)

Emotion experience and expression across the adult life span: insights from a multimodal assessment study.

This investigation represents a multimodal study of age-related differences in experienced and expressed affect and in emotion regulatory skills in a sample of young, middle-aged, and older adults (N=96), testing formulations derived from differential emotions theory. The experimental session consisted of a 10-min anger induction and a 10-min sadness induction using a relived emotion task; participants were also randomly assigned to an inhibition or noninhibition condition. In addition to subjective ratings of emotional experience provided by participants, their facial behavior was coded using an objective facial affect coding system; a content analysis also was applied to the emotion narratives. Separate repeated measures analyses of variance applied to each emotion domain indicated age differences in the co-occurrence of negative emotions and co-occurrence of positive and negative emotions across domains, thus extending the finding of emotion heterogeneity or complexity in emotion experience to facial behavior and verbal narratives. The authors also found that the inhibition condition resulted in a different pattern of results in the older versus middle-aged and younger adults. The intensity and frequency of discrete emotions were similar across age groups, with a few exceptions. Overall, the findings were generally consistent with differential emotions theory.

Diversity matters: Unique populations of women and breast cancer screening

Ethnic differences in breast cancer screening behaviors are well established. However, there is a lack of understanding regarding exactly what causes these differences and which characteristics in low‐screening populations should be targeted in an effort to modify screening behavior.

Time spent in the United States and breast cancer screening behaviors among ethnically diverse immigrant women: evidence for acculturation?

The current study was designed to investigate the relations between time spent in the United States and breast cancer screening in a large sample (N=915) of ethnically diverse immigrant women living in New York City. Previous research among Hispanic women has suggested that acculturation positively influences health beliefs and preventive health behaviors. However, research has not yet extended to other growing immigrant groups, including women from Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean, and has not tested whether time spent in the United States differentially impacts breast screening across groups that are known to vary in their health beliefs. As expected, time spent in the United States was associated with a greater number of mammograms and clinical breast exams. Importantly, these relations held even when controlling for (a) age, income, education, marital status; (b) morbidity, health insurance, physicians recommendation, physical exams; and (c) ethnicity. Moreover, time spent in the United States interacted with being Haitian to predict the number of clinical breast exams. Even though Haitians were less likely to utilize breast cancer screening overall, time spent in the United States had a stronger effect on the number of clinical breast exams for Haitian women. Results are discussed in terms of the ethnic-specificity of health beliefs, how they may change over time and their implications for preventive health behaviors.

The uncharted waters of emotion: Ethnicity, trait emotion and emotion expression in older adults

Emotions are central to contemporary theories of health, and a growingbody of psychological research has shown emotion and emotion regulatorystyles to be predictive of health outcomes. Yet despite these clear links andthe fact that patterns of emotion and expression are partially a product ofculture, there is a meager literature on the emotional characteristics ofdifferent ethnic groups. Even where ethnicity has been investigated inemotions research, it has typically been operationalized in such a way thatwithin-group differences are obscured with most individuals assigned tobroad ethnic categories, such as non-Hispanic White, or Black. In thepresent study we draw on data from a multi-ethnic sample of 755community-dwelling older adults to parse a picture of the emotionalcharacteristics of three of the largest and most culturally distinct ethnicgroups in the Northeastern United States: African Americans, West Indians (Jamaicans), andEastern Slavs (Russians and Ukrainians) from the former Soviet Republic,as well as a comparison group of US-born European Americans. Aspredicted, there were striking differences in nine of 10 trait emotions aswell as in levels of emotion expressed during conflict. The findings arediscussed in terms of emotion socialization and implications for predictionand intervention in psychosocial models of emotions, emotion regulation,and health in older ethnic populations.

Incidence rates of the major leukemia subtypes among U.S. Hispanics, Blacks, and non-Hispanic Whites

While leukemia rates are thought to be lower in South and Central America, no study has systematically investigated incidence rates of the leukemia subtypes among Hispanics in the U.S. This was a retrospective cohort study, using data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program of the National Cancer Institute, 1992 – 2001, to compare leukemia incidence rates as a function of race and ethnicity. It was found that in adults, Hispanics had lower incidence rates for each of the major types of leukemia as compared to non-Hispanic Whites: For AML, elderly Whites had an incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 1.61 in comparison to Hispanics (p < 0.001) and 1.27 in comparison to Blacks (p < 0.001); for CML, the IRR among the elderly was 1.42 that of Hispanics (p < 0.001) and 1.22 that of Blacks (p = 0.003); and for CLL, the IRR was 2.31 times that of Hispanics (p < 0.001) and 1.48 times that of Blacks (p < 0.001). In ALL, however, Hispanics aged 0 – 19 had a significantly higher incidence rate than Whites and Blacks, with an IRR of 1.32 compared to Whites (p < 0.001), and 2.62 compared to Blacks (p < 0.001). In AML, CML, and CLL, among people age 65 or older, white non-Hispanics have higher incidence rates than Blacks, and Blacks have higher incidence rates than Hispanics. Childhood ALL incidence rates are highest among Hispanics, and lowest among Blacks.

Insomnia symptoms and repressive coping in a sample of older Black and White women.

BackgroundThis study examined whether ethnic differences in insomnia symptoms are mediated by differences in repressive coping styles.MethodsA total of 1274 women (average age = 59.36 ± 6.53 years) participated in the study; 28% were White and 72% were Black. Older women in Brooklyn, NY were recruited using a stratified, cluster-sampling technique. Trained staff conducted face-to-face interviews lasting 1.5 hours acquiring sociodemographic data, health characteristics, and risk factors. A sleep questionnaire was administered and individual repressive coping styles were assessed. Fishers exact test and Spearman and Pearson analyses were used to analyze the data.ResultsThe rate of insomnia symptoms was greater among White women [74% vs. 46%; χ2 = 87.67, p < 0.0001]. Black women scored higher on the repressive coping scale than did White women [Black = 37.52 ± 6.99, White = 29.78 ± 7.38, F1,1272 = 304.75, p < 0.0001]. We observed stronger correlations between repressive coping and insomnia symptoms for Black [rs = -0.43, p < 0.0001] than for White women [rs = -0.18, p < 0.0001]. Controlling for variation in repressive coping, the magnitude of the correlation between ethnicity and insomnia symptoms was substantially reduced. Multivariate adjustment for differences in sociodemographics, health risk factors, physical health, and health beliefs and attitudes had little effect on the relationships.ConclusionRelationships between ethnicity and insomnia symptoms are jointly dependent on the degree of repressive coping, suggesting that Black women may be reporting fewer insomnia symptoms because of a greater ability to route negative emotions from consciousness. It may be that Blacks cope with sleep problems within a positive self-regulatory framework, which allows them to deal more effectively with sleep-interfering psychological processes to stressful life events and to curtail dysfunctional sleep-interpreting processes.

Cancer Incidence and Mortality in the Caribbean

Background: Nearly 10% of immigrants to the United States come from the Caribbean region. In this paper, we analyzed incidence and mortality rates of the major cancers in the Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad and Tobago, and compared them with US patterns. Methods: We obtained age-standardized, sex-specific cancer incidence and mortality rates for cancers of the bladder, breast, cervix, esophagus, large bowel, liver, lung, pancreas, prostate, and stomach for 8 Caribbean countries and the United States from the GLOBOCAN program of the International Agency for Research in Cancer (IARC) and for the U.S. population from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program of the NCI. Results: GLOBOCAN incidence and mortality rates for the overall United States were lower than but correlated with overall SEER rates. Based on GLOBOCAN data, the incidence and mortality rates of cancers of the breast, prostate, large bowel, and lung, and, among males, bladder cancer were lower in the Caribbean countries than the United States. Caribbean countries had higher rates of cancers of the cervix, esophagus, liver, and stomach. Haiti had the highest incidence and mortality rates of cervix and liver cancers. Jamaica and Haiti had the highest rates of stomach cancer. Conclusions: Cancer incidence and mortality in the Caribbean generally follow known patterns of association with economic development, infectious agents, and racial/ethnic origin. Studying these patterns and how immigration changes them may yield clues to cancer etiology. A better understanding of cancer incidence and mortality rates may help health policymakers to implement state-of-the-art treatment and preventive services for people of Caribbean descent both in their native countries and in immigrant communities in the United States.

Wellbeing of adult children and ageing parents: associations with intergenerational support and relationship quality

ABSTRACT The current study describes from an attachment-theoretical viewpoint how intergenerational support in adult child-parent relationships is associated with wellbeing in both generations. The attachment perspective and its focus on affective relationship characteristics is considered as an important theoretical framework for the investigation of special relationships across the life span. Data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (N=1,456 dyads) were analysed to investigate if relationship quality moderated the association between providing intergenerational support to parents and wellbeing in adult children, on the one hand, and receiving intergenerational support from children and wellbeing of older parents on the other hand. The perspectives of both relationship partners were taken into account to allow for dependence within dyads. Intergenerational support, in terms of instrumental help provision, was negatively associated with the childs and parents wellbeing. Being the stronger and wiser partner in adult-child parent relationships, as reflected by giving advice and being the initiator within the relationship, was beneficial for the wellbeing of both generations. Additionally, relationship quality was the strongest predictor of wellbeing in both generations. Parental wellbeing was benefited by filial support in high quality relationships. If an intergenerational relationships was of high quality, the challenges of intergenerational support provision and receipt were easier to deal with for both generations, parents and children.

The association of family support and wellbeing in later life depends on adult attachment style

The current study examines the association between family support and wellbeing in the elderly, paying particular attention to the possible moderating role of attachment style. Data from a community-dwelling, ethnically diverse, elderly sample (N = 1118) were analyzed to determine the best linear combination of emotional support, instrumental support, and attachment styles predicting wellbeing. Emotional support generally was associated with higher wellbeing whereas instrumental support was related to decreased wellbeing. As expected, however, these associations were qualified by attachment style. Receiving emotional support had stronger positive and instrumental support less negative effects on the wellbeing of elderly individuals with higher attachment security. Given increased longevity, family networks may become important sources of support for the elderly. Work detailing when, how, and for whom particular types of family support are beneficial is a key agenda within developmental psychology and social gerontology.