Epigenetic age associates with psychosocial stress and resilience in children of Latinx immigrants

Abstract

Aim: To investigate associations of psychosocial stressors and resilience factors with DNA methylation age in the saliva of Latinx children of immigrants before and after the 2016 presidential election (2015–2018). Materials & methods: We compared psychosocial exposures with four distinct measures of epigenetic age assessed in the saliva of children (6–13 years, n = 71 pre-election; n = 35 post-election). Exploratory genome-wide analyses were also conducted. Results: We found distinct associations across epigenetic clocks and time points; for example, greater maternal social status pre-election and fear of parent deportation post-election both associated with decreased Hannum age (p ≤ 0.01). Conclusion: Although limited in size, our unique study design provides novel hypotheses regarding how the social environment may influence epigenetic aging and genome-wide methylation, potentially contributing to racial/ethnic health inequalities.