# Early origins of health disparities: Chronic inflammation

> **NIH NIH R21** · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $237,000

## Abstract

Project Summary
The United States is characterized by persistent and growing socioeconomic and race-based disparities in a
wide range of health outcomes, including chronic inflammation. Measuring inflammation in early adulthood is
important because it predicts risk for major public health burdens, including cardiovascular disease, metabolic
syndrome, disability, and adverse birth outcomes. As such, there is an urgent need to understand the
pathways through which social and economic environments contribute to chronic inflammation, and recent
research provides compelling evidence that infancy and childhood are sensitive time periods during which
exposure to socioeconomic disadvantage can have lasting effects on health, including the regulation of
inflammation. The proposed research applies a biosocial life course approach to investigate the early-life
origins of disparities in chronic inflammation, with the following specific aims: 1) Document socioeconomic
disparities in chronic inflammation, and investigate body fat, health behaviors, and psychosocial stress as
pathways mediating associations between socioeconomic status and inflammation; 2) Investigate early-life
socioeconomic status—and correlated exposures—as predictors of chronic inflammation in young adulthood;
and 3) Evaluate chronic inflammation as a risk factor for adverse birth outcomes, including pregnancy
complications, pre-term delivery, and lower birth weight. These aims will be implemented using existing data
from five waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), a large,
nationally-representative cohort with rich contextual and behavioral data, as well as physiological and health
data, collected at multiple time points over the life course. C-reactive protein (CRP)—a key biomarker of
inflammation—will be the primary dependent variable in a series of structural equation models (SEM) that test
the hypothesis that lower socioeconomic status contributes to higher inflammation through its associations with
increased body fat, health-damaging behaviors, and increased exposure to psychosocial stressors. Models
representing sensitive time period effects (stronger and independent associations between early SES and
adult CRP), cumulative adversity (additive effects of early and later SES), and environmental continuity (early
SES predicts adult SES) will also be compared to reveal the life course processes through which early-life SES
contributes to disparities in chronic inflammation in adulthood. In addition, since dysregulated inflammation is
associated with adverse birth outcomes, pregnancy represents an important life stage for evaluating the public
health significance of chronic inflammation. Among the female participants who have transitioned to
motherhood, we will test the hypothesis that elevated CRP—during pregnancy, as well as preconception—
predicts pregnancy/birth complications, pre-term delivery, and offspring birth weight. Knowledge gaine...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9954931
- **Project number:** 1R21HD101757-01
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** THOMAS W MC DADE
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $237,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-05-15 → 2022-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9954931

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9954931, Early origins of health disparities: Chronic inflammation (1R21HD101757-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9954931. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*