Elevated C-reactive protein in children from risky neighborhoods: evidence for a stress pathway linking neighborhoods and inflammation in children.
BACKGROUND
Childhood socioeconomic status is linked to adult cardiovascular disease and disease risk. One proposed pathway involves inflammation due to exposure to a stress-inducing neighborhood environment. Whether CRP, a marker of systemic inflammation, is associated with stressful neighborhood conditions among children is unknown.


RESULTS
The sample included 385 children 5-18 years of age from 255 households and 101 census tracts. Multilevel logistic regression analyses compared children and adolescents with CRP levels >3 mg/L to those with levels ≤ 3 mg/L across neighborhood environments. Among children living in neighborhoods (census tracts) in the upper tertile of poverty or crime, 18.6% had elevated CRP levels, in contrast to 7.9% of children living in neighborhoods with lower levels of poverty and crime. Children from neighborhoods with the highest levels of either crime or poverty had 2.7 (95% CI: 1.2-6.2) times the odds of having elevated CRP levels when compared to children from other neighborhoods, independent of adiposity, demographic and behavioral differences.


CONCLUSIONS
Children living in neighborhoods with high levels of poverty or crime had elevated CRP levels compared to children from other neighborhoods. This result is consistent with a psychosocial pathway favoring early development of cardiovascular risk that involves chronic stress from exposure to socially- and physically-disordered neighborhoods characteristic of poverty.
Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University System, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA. stephanie.broyles@pbrc.edu
Stephanie T
ST
Broyles
Amanda E
AE
Staiano
Kathryn T
KT
Drazba
Alok K
AK
Gupta
Melinda
M
Sothern
Peter T
PT
Katzmarzyk
D000293:Adolescent; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D002097:C-Reactive Protein / Q000032:analysis*; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003415:Crime; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation / Q000097:blood*; D008297:Male; D011203:Poverty; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012307:Risk Factors; D012923:Social Class; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000097:blood* / Q000150:complications; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
D015415:Biomarkers; D002097:C-Reactive Protein