Police intrusion associated with faster epigenetic age acceleration among Black youth
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Key takeaways:
- White youth had slower epigenetic age acceleration than Black, Hispanic and other youth.
- Black youth reported experiencing police intrusion as early as age 8 years.
Black youth who experienced intrusive police encounters age faster compared with white youth, according to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics.
“One thing that I found surprising was how consistent police intrusive encounters predicted more accelerated epigenetic aging among youth across three generations of epigenetic clocks,” Juan Del Toro, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, told Healio. “These clocks were each estimated to predict unique facets of health, including biological age, comorbidity and mortality, so the fact that police intrusion predicted greater epigenetic age acceleration across the three [generations of] clocks suggests that the stress following police intrusion has consequences across a swath of health-related outcomes.”
Del Toro and colleagues analyzed data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing (FFCW) study, which recruited children born between 1998 and 2000 to unmarried parents. They looked at DNA methylation samples that had been collected from 2,039 children (50% boys) at ages 9 and 15 years.
The researchers used five epigenetic clocks to calculate aging in their study population: Horvath, Hannum, PhenoAge, GrimAge and DunedinPACE.
In addition to providing saliva samples, participants in the FFCW study completed a police intrusion survey at age 15 years. The researchers noted that the adolescents reported intrusive police encounters as early as age 8 years. The mean age for experiencing their first intrusive encounter was 13.29 years (standard deviation, 1.71 years).
Overall, 45% of the participants were Black, 17% were white, 21% were Hispanic or Latino and 17% were of another, or multiple, race or ethnicity.
At baseline, the researchers found that Black youths had lower epigenetic age acceleration, compared with white youths, according to the Horvath and Hannum clocks, whereas Black, Hispanic and other children had higher epigenetic age acceleration than white youths, based on the DunedinPACE clock.
From age 9 to 15 years, white participants had slower epigenetic age acceleration than Black, Hispanic and other participants, according to the Hannum (B = 1.54; 95% CI, 0.36-2.18), GrimAge (B = 1.31; 95% CI, 0.68-1.97) and DunedinPACE clocks (B = 0.27; 95% CI, 0.11-0.44), the researchers wrote.
Del Toro and colleagues found that intrusive police encounters had a significant effect on Black children’s epigenetic age acceleration based on the Hannum, GrimAge, PhenoAge and DunedinPACE clocks. They did not see significant associations between police intrusion and disparities among Hispanic youths or youths of another race or ethnicity.
Del Toro said knowing that police intrusion negatively affects children’s epigenetic age acceleration can help pediatricians identify at-risk youth sooner.
“Pediatricians can then screen for trauma exposure, offer trauma-informed care and collaborate with mental health professionals to provide necessary support,” Del Toro said. “Early intervention can mitigate the long-term health impacts of these encounters.”
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