{"doi":"10.1093/abm/kaac008","title":"First-generation College Students Have Greater Systemic Inflammation than Continuing-Generation College Students Following the Initial College Transition: A Brief Report","abstract":"BACKGROUND: First-generation college students (\"first-gens\") are often at a disadvantage socially and academically; whether they are at risk physiologically is unknown despite the well-established link between greater education and better long-term health. PURPOSE: To examine whether first-gens have higher levels of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk markers relative to continuing-generation college students (\"continuing-gens\"). METHODS: A panel of CVD risk markers was assessed among 87 emerging adults (41 first-gens) twice over their first year of college. RESULTS: Compared to continuing-gens, first-gens had greater systemic inflammation (composite of averaged z-scores for C-reactive protein and interleukin-6; B = 0.515, SE = 0.171, p = .003) during the fall but not spring semester (p > .05). Associations were independent of family home ownership and childhood adversity, even though first-gens were more likely to live in rental homes and reported riskier home environments. Lower childhood subjective social status (SSS) accounted for greater systemic inflammation among first-gens as evidenced by an indirect effect of college generation status on systemic inflammation through childhood SSS (a1b1 = 0.261, bootstrapped SE = 0.103, 95% boot CI [0.078, 0.482]). There were no differences in metabolic risk and latent virus regulation by college generation status in either semester (p > .10). CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to find that first-gens have higher levels of systemic inflammation than continuing-gens following the college transition and that childhood SSS may be one explanatory pathway. First-gens may benefit from university resources that address social class differences, which should be provided early on so that first-gens can reap the health-relevant benefits of higher education, at least in the short term.","journal":"Annals of Behavioral Medicine","year":2022,"id":288885,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":6,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9609,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":809117,"name":"Hannah M. C. Schreier","orcid":"0000-0002-3566-6019","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":906244,"name":"Emily J. Jones","orcid":"0000-0001-8176-9185","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":36,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:30:18.766838Z","pmid":"35445688","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":[]}