Tung, KTS;
Wong, RS;
Tsang, HW;
Wong, WHS;
Tso, WWY;
Yam, JC;
Lum, TYS;
... Ip, P; + view all
(2022)
Family Financial Pressure in Childhood and Telomere Length in Early Adolescence: A Prospective Study.
Genes
, 13
(5)
p. 721.
10.3390/genes13050721.
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Abstract
Much research on children in high-risk environments has focused on the biological consequences of maltreatment, adversity, and trauma. Whether other early-life stress sources such as family financial hardship are implicated in the cellular mechanism of disease development remains unclear. This study investigated the long-term effect of childhood exposure to family financial pressure on telomere length. It involved two waves of data collection occurring when participants reached Grade 3 (W1) and 7 (W2), respectively. In W1, parents reported family demographics and perceived financial stressors and pressure. In W2, participants provided buccal swab samples for measurement of their telomere length. Data from 92 participants (Mage in W2 = 13.2 years; 56.5% male) were analyzed. The main type of stressors reported by parents who perceived high family financial pressure in W1 were child-level stressors including affordability of their medical and educational expenses. Participants exposed to high parent-perceived family financial pressure in W1 had shorter telomeres in W2 when compared to those exposed to low parent-perceived family financial pressure (β = −0.61, p = 0.042). Subgroup analyses revealed stronger associations in girls than boys. These findings reveal an important spillover effect between parental financial perceptions and stress and children’s health at the cellular level.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Family Financial Pressure in Childhood and Telomere Length in Early Adolescence: A Prospective Study |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3390/genes13050721 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3390/genes13050721 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited |
| Keywords: | Telomere; early childhood exposure; family financial pressure |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > UCL School of Pharmacy > Practice and Policy UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > UCL School of Pharmacy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10148866 |
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