UCLA

Exposure to early stressful experiences has been associated with a variety of poor health outcomes in adolescence and adulthood (Felitti et al., 1998; Repetti, Taylor, & Seeman, 2002; Springer, Sheridan, Kuo, & Carnes, 2007). The current project was designed to explore specific psychosocial and biological mechanisms through which early adversity might prospectively shape physical health in adulthood. Study 1 used longitudinal data from a community sample to show that cumulative experiences of early adversity, as measured by contemporaneous maternal report, predicted poor self-reported and interviewer-rated physical health in young adults. Results suggested that early adverse experiences led to ongoing stress in social and nonsocial (e.g., academic) contexts, which in turn portended poor health. Elevated depressive symptoms accounted, in large part, for the effects of ongoing social stress on later risk for poor health. Study 2, using a subset of the Study 1 sample, showed that individuals who experienced early adversity tended to have higher depressive symptoms partially as a result of close friendships with individuals with mental health problems. Study 3 examined the day-to-day dynamics of interpersonal and biological mechanisms of the effects of early adversity on physical health in a sample of college students. Results suggested that young adults who have experienced stressful family environments reported more instances of reassurance-seeking, aggression, and withdrawal on a day-to-day basis. In addition, early adversity predicted higher daily reports of negative affect. Together, these findings support the notion that early adversity can have a long-lasting impact on patterns of psychological, social, and biological functioning, and that early adversity and ongoing stress might contribute to poor physical health in part through their effects on social relationships and mood. Results have implications for the development of targeted interventions designed to prevent the long-term emotional and physical consequences of early life stress.