{"doi":"10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.3669","title":"Longitudinal Changes in Epigenetic Age Acceleration Across Childhood and Adolescence","abstract":"<jats:sec id=\"ab-poi240064-4\"><jats:title>Importance</jats:title><jats:p>Individuals exposed to discrimination may exhibit greater epigenetic age acceleration (ie, cellular indicators of premature aging) over time, but few studies have examined longitudinal changes in epigenetic age acceleration, the heterogeneity in these changes for diverse groups of youths, and contextual explanations (ie, discrimination) for differences by ethnicity or race.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"ab-poi240064-5\"><jats:title>Objective</jats:title><jats:p>To provide a descriptive illustration of changes in epigenetic age acceleration across childhood and adolescence among an ethnically and racially diverse sample of youths.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"ab-poi240064-6\"><jats:title>Design, Setting, and Participants</jats:title><jats:p>This cohort study leveraged longitudinal data on a large sample of youths from low-income households in 20 large urban US cities who provided repeated assessments of saliva tissue samples at ages 9 and 15 years for DNA methylation analysis. Of 4898 youths from the Future of Families and Child Well-Being study, an ongoing study that oversampled children born to unmarried parents from 1998 to 2000, 2039 were included in the present analysis, as these youths had salivary DNA methylation data assayed and publicly available. Analyses were conducted from March 2023 to June 2024.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"ab-poi240064-7\"><jats:title>Exposures</jats:title><jats:p>Racialized intrusive encounters with police (eg, stop and frisk and racial slurs).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"ab-poi240064-8\"><jats:title>Main Outcomes and Measures</jats:title><jats:p>Analyses were conducted to examine longitudinal changes in salivary epigenetic age acceleration over time, whether such changes varied across ethnically and racially diverse groups of youths, and whether police intrusion was associated with variation across ethnic and racial groups.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"ab-poi240064-9\"><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>Among 2039 youths (mean [SD] age at baseline, 9.27 [0.38] years; 1023 [50%] male and 1016 [50%] female; 917 [45%] Black, 430 [21%] Hispanic or Latino, 351 [17%] White, and 341 [17%] other, including multiple races and self-identified other) with salivary epigenetic clocks at 9 and 15 years of age, longitudinal results showed that White youths exhibited less accelerated epigenetic aging over time than did Black and Hispanic or Latino youths and those reporting other or multiple races or ethnicities from ages 9 to 15 years, particularly in the Hannum (B, 1.54; 95% CI, 0.36-2.18), GrimAge (B, 1.31; 95% CI, 0.68-1.97), and DunedinPACE epigenetic clocks (B, 0.27; 95% CI, 0.11-0.44). Across these clocks and the PhenoAge clock, police intrusion was associated with Black youths’ more accelerated epigenetic aging (Hannum: B, 0.11; 95% CI, 0.03-0.23; GrimAge: B, 0.09; 95% CI, 0.03-0.18; PhenoAge: B, 0.08; 95% CI, 0.02-0.18; DunedinPACE: B, 0.01; 95% CI, 0.01-0.03).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"ab-poi240064-10\"><jats:title>Conclusions and Relevance</jats:title><jats:p>The transition from childhood to adolescence may represent a sensitive developmental period when racism can have long-term deleterious impacts on healthy human development across the life span. Future research should build on the present study and interrogate which social regularities and policies may be perpetuating discrimination against ethnically and racially minoritized adolescents.</jats:p></jats:sec>","journal":"JAMA Pediatrics","year":2024,"id":628323,"datarank":0.519860385419959,"base_score":3.4657359027997265,"endowment":3.4657359027997265,"self_citation_contribution":0.519860385419959,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.519860385419959,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":31,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1626723,"name":"Connor Martz","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":913657,"name":"Colin D. Freilich","orcid":"0000-0002-6183-7520","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1626724,"name":"Gianna Rea-Sandin","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1482764,"name":"Kristian Markon","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1213946,"name":"Steve Cole","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264621,"name":"Robert F. Krueger","orcid":"0000-0001-9127-5509","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":377315,"name":"Sylia Wilson","orcid":"0000-0003-0144-524X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":696687,"name":"Juan Del Toro","orcid":"0000-0001-8625-026X","position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"Longitudinal Changes in Epigenetic Age Acceleration Across Childhood and Adolescence","abstract":"<jats:sec id=\"ab-poi240064-4\"><jats:title>Importance</jats:title><jats:p>Individuals exposed to discrimination may exhibit greater epigenetic age acceleration (ie, cellular indicators of premature aging) over time, but few studies have examined longitudinal changes in epigenetic age acceleration, the heterogeneity in these changes for diverse groups of youths, and contextual explanations (ie, discrimination) for differences by ethnicity or race.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"ab-poi240064-5\"><jats:title>Objective</jats:title><jats:p>To provide a descriptive illustration of changes in epigenetic age acceleration across childhood and adolescence among an ethnically and racially diverse sample of youths.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"ab-poi240064-6\"><jats:title>Design, Setting, and Participants</jats:title><jats:p>This cohort study leveraged longitudinal data on a large sample of youths from low-income households in 20 large urban US cities who provided repeated assessments of saliva tissue samples at ages 9 and 15 years for DNA methylation analysis. Of 4898 youths from the Future of Families and Child Well-Being study, an ongoing study that oversampled children born to unmarried parents from 1998 to 2000, 2039 were included in the present analysis, as these youths had salivary DNA methylation data assayed and publicly available. Analyses were conducted from March 2023 to June 2024.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"ab-poi240064-7\"><jats:title>Exposures</jats:title><jats:p>Racialized intrusive encounters with police (eg, stop and frisk and racial slurs).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"ab-poi240064-8\"><jats:title>Main Outcomes and Measures</jats:title><jats:p>Analyses were conducted to examine longitudinal changes in salivary epigenetic age acceleration over time, whether such changes varied across ethnically and racially diverse groups of youths, and whether police intrusion was associated with variation across ethnic and racial groups.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"ab-poi240064-9\"><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>Among 2039 youths (mean [SD] age at baseline, 9.27 [0.38] years; 1023 [50%] male and 1016 [50%] female; 917 [45%] Black, 430 [21%] Hispanic or Latino, 351 [17%] White, and 341 [17%] other, including multiple races and self-identified other) with salivary epigenetic clocks at 9 and 15 years of age, longitudinal results showed that White youths exhibited less accelerated epigenetic aging over time than did Black and Hispanic or Latino youths and those reporting other or multiple races or ethnicities from ages 9 to 15 years, particularly in the Hannum (B, 1.54; 95% CI, 0.36-2.18), GrimAge (B, 1.31; 95% CI, 0.68-1.97), and DunedinPACE epigenetic clocks (B, 0.27; 95% CI, 0.11-0.44). Across these clocks and the PhenoAge clock, police intrusion was associated with Black youths’ more accelerated epigenetic aging (Hannum: B, 0.11; 95% CI, 0.03-0.23; GrimAge: B, 0.09; 95% CI, 0.03-0.18; PhenoAge: B, 0.08; 95% CI, 0.02-0.18; DunedinPACE: B, 0.01; 95% CI, 0.01-0.03).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id=\"ab-poi240064-10\"><jats:title>Conclusions and Relevance</jats:title><jats:p>The transition from childhood to adolescence may represent a sensitive developmental period when racism can have long-term deleterious impacts on healthy human development across the life span. Future research should build on the present study and interrogate which social regularities and policies may be perpetuating discrimination against ethnically and racially minoritized adolescents.</jats:p></jats:sec>","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":3.4339872044851463,"endowment":3.4339872044851463,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"39373995","pmcid":"PMC11459359","openalex_id":"https://openalex.org/W4403186940","authors":[],"funders":[{"funder_name":"NIDA NIH HHS","grant_id":"R01 DA056499","title":null},{"funder_name":"NIA NIH HHS","grant_id":"U01 AG077928","title":null},{"funder_name":"NIA NIH HHS","grant_id":"U19 AG051426","title":null},{"funder_name":"NICHD NIH HHS","grant_id":"P2C HD041023","title":null},{"funder_name":"NIMHD NIH HHS","grant_id":"R01 MD011716","title":null},{"funder_name":"Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P.","grant_id":"DUT/0002/2023","title":"Pathways towards Age-friendly Neighbourhoods: Transnational research, knowledge transfer, collaborative approaches and capacity building for the transition towards the 15-minute city."},{"funder_name":"National Institutes of Health","grant_id":"5U19AG051426-02","title":"Integrative Pathways to Health and Illness"},{"funder_name":"National Institutes of Health","grant_id":"5R01AG053217-05","title":"The contributions of personality and social relationships to late-life health: A twin study approach"},{"funder_name":"National Institutes of Health","grant_id":"1R01AG077742-01","title":"Antecedents of Adult Physical Health and Cognitive Risks for Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) in Adolescent Family Experiences: A Prospective, Longitudinal Adoption Study"},{"funder_name":"National Institutes of Health","grant_id":"2P2CHD042849-16","title":"Population Research Center"},{"funder_name":"National Institutes of Health","grant_id":"5T32HD007081-20","title":"SOCIAL DEMOGRAPHY"},{"funder_name":"National Institutes of Health","grant_id":"5T32DA050560-05","title":"Training in genetic and neurobehavioral mechanisms of addiction"}],"total_grants":12,"fwci":4.8469,"citation_percentile":0.96411122,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[{"year":2024,"count":2},{"year":2025,"count":13},{"year":2026,"count":15}],"oa_status":"hybrid","license":"cc-by","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/articlepdf/2824558/jamapediatrics_del_toro_2024_oi_240064_1727730020.81375.pdf","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/articlepdf/2824558/jamapediatrics_del_toro_2024_oi_240064_1727730020.81375.pdf","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/articlepdf/2824558/jamapediatrics_del_toro_2024_oi_240064_1732566617.4161.pdf","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.3669","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39373995","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/11459359","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC11459359","host_type":"Europe_PMC"},{"url":"http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.3669","host_type":""}],"fields_of_study":["Epigenetics and DNA Methylation","Stress Responses and Cortisol","Cleft Lip and Palate Research","Humans","Adolescent","Child","Male","Female","Epigenesis, Genetic","Longitudinal Studies","DNA Methylation","United States","Aging","Saliva"],"mesh_terms":["Adolescent","Aging","Child","Female","Humans","Longitudinal Studies","Male","Saliva","United States","DNA Methylation","Epigenesis, Genetic"],"keywords":["Medicine","Longitudinal study","Demography","Epigenetics","Ethnic group","Cohort","Racial differences","Gerontology","Genetics","Internal medicine","Male","Aging","Adolescent","Humans","Female","Longitudinal Studies","DNA Methylation","Child","Saliva","United States","Original Investigation","Epigenesis, Genetic"],"sdg_mappings":[],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-08-05T12:56:49.147421Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}