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1. Childhood adversity during the post‐apartheid transition and COVID ‐19 stress independently predict adult PTSD risk in urban S outh A frica: A biocultural analysis of the stress sensitization hypothesis

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24791  

   Kim, Andrew Wooyoung ; Said Mohamed, Rihlat ; Norris, Shane A. ; Naicker, Sara ; Richter, Linda M. ; Kuzawa, Christopher W. ( June 2023 , American Journal of Biological Anthropology)

   The COVID‐19 pandemic in South Africa introduced new societal adversities and mental health threats in a country where one in three individuals are expected to develop a psychiatric condition sometime in their life. Scientists have suggested that psychosocial stress and trauma during childhood may increase one's vulnerability to the mental health consequences of future stressors—a process known as stress sensitization. This prospective analysis assessed whether childhood adversity experienced among South African children across the first 18 years of life, coinciding with the post‐apartheid transition, exacerbates the mental health impacts of psychosocial stress experienced during the 2019 coronavirus (COVID‐19) pandemic (ca. 2020–2021).

   Data came from 88 adults who participated in a follow‐up study of a longitudinal birth cohort study in Soweto, South Africa. Childhood adversity and COVID‐19 psychosocial stress were assessed as primary predictors of adult PTSD risk, and an interaction term between childhood adversity and COVID‐19 stress was calculated to evaluate the potential effect of stress sensitization.

   Fifty‐six percent of adults exhibited moderate‐to‐severe PTSD symptoms. Greater childhood adversity and higher COVID‐19 psychosocial stress independently predicted worse post‐traumatic stress disorder symptoms in adults. Adults who reported greater childhood adversity exhibited non‐significantly worse PTSD symptoms from COVID‐19 psychosocial stress.

   These results highlight the deleterious mental health effects of both childhood trauma and COVID‐19 psychosocial stress in our sample and emphasize the need for greater and more accessible mental health support as the pandemic progresses in South Africa.

    

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2. The Experience and Effect of Adolescent to Robot Stress Disclosure: A Mixed-Methods Exploration

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62056-1_50  

   Björling, Elin A ; Ling, Honson ; Bhatia, Simran ; Dziubinski, Kim ( November 2020 , International Conference on Social Robotics)

   null (Ed.)

   Social robots hold the potential to be an effective and appropriate technology in reducing stress and improving the mental health of adolescents. In order to understand the effect of adolescent-to-robot disclosure on momentary stress, we conducted an exploratory, mixed-methods study with sixty-nine US adolescents (ages 14–21) in school settings. We compared a generic, minimalist robot interaction among three different robot embodiments: physical, digital computer screen, and immersive, virtual reality. We found participants’ momentary stress levels significantly decreased across multiple interactions over time. The physical and virtual reality embodiments were most effective for stress reduction. In addition, our qualitative findings provide unique insights into the types of stressors adolescents shared with the social robots as well as their experiences with the different interaction embodiments. 

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3. Stressful social environment and financial strain drive depressive symptoms, and reveal the effects of a FKBP5 variant and male sex, in African Americans living in Tallahassee

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24362  

   Fuller, Kia ; Gravlee, Clarence C. ; McCarty, Christopher ; Mitchell, Miaisha M. ; Mulligan, Connie J. ( July 2021 , American Journal of Physical Anthropology)

   The World Health Organization estimates that almost 300 million people suffer from depression worldwide. African Americans are understudied for depression‐related phenotypes despite widespread racial disparities. In our study of African Americans, we integrated information on psychosocial stressors with genetic variation in order to better understand how these factors associated with depressive symptoms.

   Our research strategy combined information on financial strain and social networks with genetic data to investigate variation in symptoms of depression (CES‐D scores). We collected self‐report data on depressive symptoms, financial strain (difficulty paying bills) and personal social networks (a model of an individual's social environment), and we genotyped genetic variants in five genes previously implicated in depressive disorders (HTR1a, BDNF, GNB3, SLC6A4, andFKBP5) in 128 African Americans residing in Tallahassee, Florida. We tested for direct and gene–environment interactive effects of the psychosocial stressors and genetic variants on depressive symptoms.

   Significant associations were identified between high CES‐D scores and a stressful social environment (i.e., a high percentage of people in participants' social network who were a source of stress) and high financial strain. Only one genetic variant (rs1360780 inFKBP5) was significantly associated with CES‐D scores and only when psychosocial stressors were included in the model; the T allele had an additive effect on depressive symptoms. Sex was also significantly associated with CES‐D score in the model with psychosocial stressors and genetic variants; males had higher CES‐D scores. No significant interactive effects were detected.

   A stressful social environment and material disadvantage increase depressive symptoms in the study population. Additional associations withFKBP5and male sex were revealed in models that included both psychosocial and genetic data. Our results suggest that incorporating psychosocial stressors may empower future genetic association studies and help clarify the biological consequences of social and financial stress.

    

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4. Novel GxE effects and resilience: A case:control longitudinal study of psychosocial stress with war-affected youth

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266509  

   Mulligan, Connie J. ; Clukay, Christopher J. ; Matarazzo, Anthony ; Hadfield, Kristin ; Nevell, Lisa ; Dajani, Rana ; Panter-Brick, Catherine ( April 2022 , PLOS ONE)

   Boon-Peng, Hoh (Ed.)

   Responses to early life adversity differ greatly across individuals. Elucidating which factors underlie this variation can help us better understand how to improve health trajectories. Here we used a case:control study of refugee and non-refugee youth, differentially exposed to war-related trauma, to investigate the effects of genetics and psychosocial environment on response to trauma. We investigated genetic variants in two genes (serotonin transporter, 5-HTT , and catechol-O-methyltransferase, COMT ) that have been implicated in response to trauma. We collected buccal samples and survey data from 417 Syrian refugee and 306 Jordanian non-refugee youth who were enrolled in a randomized controlled trial to evaluate a mental health-focused intervention. Measures of lifetime trauma exposure, resilience, and six mental health and psychosocial stress outcomes were collected at three time points: baseline, ~13 weeks, and ~48 weeks. We used multilevel models to identify gene x environment (GxE) interactions and direct effects of the genetic variants in association with the six outcome measures over time. We did not identify any interactions with trauma exposure, but we did identify GxE interactions with both genes and resilience; 1) individuals with high expression (HE) variants of 5-HTTLPR and high levels of resilience had the lowest levels of perceived stress and 2) individuals homozygous for the Val variant of COMT with high levels of resilience showed stable levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms. We also identified a direct protective effect of 5-HTTLPR HE homozygotes on perceived insecurity. Our results point to novel interactions between the protective effects of genetic variants and resilience, lending support to ideas of differential susceptibility and altered stress reactivity in a cohort of war-affected adolescents. 

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5. Work in Progress: Understanding Student Perceptions of Stress as part of Engineering Culture

   Cross, Kelly J. ; Jensen, Karin J. ( January 2018 , American Society of Engineering Education Conference Proceedings)

   High levels of stress and anxiety are common amongst college students, particularly engineering students. Students report lack of sleep, grades, competition, change in lifestyle, and other significant stressors throughout their undergraduate education (1, 2). Stress and anxiety have been shown to negatively impact student experience (3-6), academic performance (6-8), and retention (9). Previous studies have focused on identifying factors that cause individual students stress while completing undergraduate engineering degree programs (1). However, it not well-understood how a culture of stress is perceived and is propagated in engineering programs or how this culture impacts student levels of identification with engineering. Further, the impact of student stress has not been directly considered in engineering regarding recruitment, retention, and success. Therefore, our guiding research question is: Does the engineering culture create stress for students that hinder their engineering identity development? To answer our research question, we designed a sequential mixed methods study with equal priority of quantitative survey data and qualitative individual interviews. Our study participants are undergraduate engineering students across all levels and majors at a large, public university. Our sample goal is 2000 engineering student respondents. We combined three published surveys to build our quantitative data collection instrument, including the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS), Identification with engineering subscale, and Engineering Department Inclusion Level subscale. The objective of the quantitative instrument is to illuminate individual perceptions of the existence of an engineering stress culture (ESC) and create an efficient tool to measure the impact ESC on engineering identity development. Specifically, we seek to understand the relationships among the following constructs; 1) identification with engineering, 2) stress and anxiety, and 3) feelings of inclusion within their department. The focus of this paper presents the results of the pilot of the proposed instrument with 20 participants and a detailed data collection and analysis process. In an effort to validate our instrument, we conducted a pilot study to refine our data collection process and the results will guide the data collection for the larger study. In addition to identifying relationships among construct, the survey data will be further analyzed to specify which demographics are mediating or moderating factors of these relationships. For example, does a student’s 1st generation status influence their perception of stress or engineering identity development? Our analysis may identify discipline-specific stressors and characterize culture components that promote student anxiety and stress. Our objective is to validate our survey instrument and use it to inform the protocol for the follow-up interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the responses to the survey instrument. Understanding what students view as stressful and how students identify stress as an element of program culture will support the development of interventions to mitigate student stress. References 1. Schneider L (2007) Perceived stress among engineering students. A Paper Presented at St. Lawrence Section Conference. Toronto, Canada. Retrieved from: www. asee. morrisville. edu. 2. Ross SE, Niebling BC, & Heckert TM (1999) Sources of stress among college students. Social psychology 61(5):841-846. 3. Goldman CS & Wong EH (1997) Stress and the college student. Education 117(4):604-611. 4. Hudd SS, et al. (2000) Stress at college: Effects on health habits, health status and self-esteem. College Student Journal 34(2):217-228. 5. Macgeorge EL, Samter W, & Gillihan SJ (2005) Academic Stress, Supportive Communication, and Health A version of this paper was presented at the 2005 International Communication Association convention in New York City. Communication Education 54(4):365-372. 6. Burt KB & Paysnick AA (2014) Identity, stress, and behavioral and emotional problems in undergraduates: Evidence for interaction effects. Journal of college student development 55(4):368-384. 7. Felsten G & Wilcox K (1992) Influences of stress and situation-specific mastery beliefs and satisfaction with social support on well-being and academic performance. Psychological Reports 70(1):291-303. 8. Pritchard ME & Wilson GS (2003) Using emotional and social factors to predict student success. Journal of college student development 44(1):18-28. 9. Zhang Z & RiCharde RS (1998) Prediction and Analysis of Freshman Retention. AIR 1998 Annual Forum Paper. 

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