@article {10168, title = {Advancing research on psychosocial stress and aging with the Health and Retirement Study: Looking back to launch the field forward}, journal = {The Journals of Gerontology: Series B}, year = {2020}, type = {Journal}, abstract = {The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) was designed as an interdisciplinary study with a strong focus on health, retirement, and socioeconomic environment, to study their dynamic relationships over time in a sample of mid-life adults. The study includes validated self-report measures and individual items that capture the experiences of stressful events (stressor exposures) and subjective assessments of stress (perceived stress) within specific life domains.}, keywords = {Aging, Measurement, Population Health, Psychosocial, Stress}, issn = {1079-5014}, doi = {10.1093/geronb/gby106}, url = {https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology/advance-article/doi/10.1093/geronb/gby106/5096750}, author = {Alexandra D. Crosswell and Suresh, Madhuvanthi and Puterman, Eli and Tara L Gruenewald and Jinkook Lee and Elissa S Epel} } @article {8704, title = {Lifespan adversity and later adulthood telomere length in the nationally representative US Health and Retirement Study.}, journal = {Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A}, volume = {113}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 10 18}, pages = {E6335-E6342}, abstract = {

Stress over the lifespan is thought to promote accelerated aging and early disease. Telomere length is a marker of cell aging that appears to be one mediator of this relationship. Telomere length is associated with early adversity and with chronic stressors in adulthood in many studies. Although cumulative lifespan adversity should have bigger impacts than single events, it is also possible that adversity in childhood has larger effects on later life health than adult stressors, as suggested by models of biological embedding in early life. No studies have examined the individual vs. cumulative effects of childhood and adulthood adversities on adult telomere length. Here, we examined the relationship between cumulative childhood and adulthood adversity, adding up a range of severe financial, traumatic, and social exposures, as well as comparing them to each other, in relation to salivary telomere length. We examined 4,598 men and women from the US Health and Retirement Study. Single adversities tended to have nonsignificant relations with telomere length. In adjusted models, lifetime cumulative adversity predicted 6\% greater odds of shorter telomere length. This result was mainly due to childhood adversity. In adjusted models for cumulative childhood adversity, the occurrence of each additional childhood event predicted 11\% increased odds of having short telomeres. This result appeared mainly because of social/traumatic exposures rather than financial exposures. This study suggests that the shadow of childhood adversity may reach far into later adulthood in part through cellular aging.

}, keywords = {Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Cellular Senescence, Female, Humans, Longevity, Male, Middle Aged, Multivariate Analysis, Odds Ratio, Public Health Surveillance, Risk Factors, Stress, Psychological, Telomere, Telomere Shortening, United States}, issn = {1091-6490}, doi = {10.1073/pnas.1525602113}, url = {http://www.pnas.org/content/113/42/E6335.long}, author = {Puterman, Eli and Gemmill, Alison and Karasek, Deborah and David R Weir and Nancy E Adler and Aric A Prather and Elissa S Epel} } @article {12186, title = {Report on Stress Measurement in the Health and Retirement Study: Evaluation and Recommendations for Improvement}, year = {2016}, publisher = {National Institute on Aging}, address = {Bethesda, MD}, keywords = {stress measures}, author = {Alexandra D. Crosswell and Suresh, Madhuvanthi and Puterman, Eli and Tara L Gruenewald and Lee, Jinkook and Elissa S Epel} }