Ethnic Differences in Experimental Pain: The Role of Adverse Social Environments and Emotion Regulation
Year: 2020
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Hispanic Americans report enhanced clinical pain severity relative to non-Hispanic White\nAmericans; however, the pain mechanisms driving this discrepancy are relatively unknown.\nTherefore, the present study examined ethnic differences in pain responses to a battery of\ndistinctly different quantifiable sensory tasks, as well as the role of psychosocial factors\nunderlying these pain differences, between pain-free Hispanic and Non-Hispanic White adults.\nAfter completing several measures related to demographics, mood, adverse life experiences, and\nsocial status, participants were administered a battery of heat, cold, and mechanical noxious\nstimuli. Each sensory task was paired with self-report or electrophysiological pain responses.\nChapter 1 begins by characterizing differences between ethnic groups on several measures of\nadverse life experiences and self-report pain responses to noxious stimuli. Chapter 2 follows up\nby examining differences in response styles between ethnicity groups and the impact these styles\nhave on pain responses. Results showed that Hispanics displayed greater evidence for both a\ngeneral and pain response minimization bias, suggesting the potential for heightened pain\nexperiences to painful stimuli amongst Hispanics. To examine how adverse life experiences\ninteract with pain mechanisms that contribute to later pain risk for Hispanics, chapter 3 assesses\nthe relationship between markers of social status and temporal summation of pain (a proxy\nmeasure of central nervous system sensitization). Results from this chapter revealed that changes\nin subjective, but not objective, social status from childhood mediated the greater temporal pain\nsummation observed amongst Hispanics relative to non-Hispanic Whites. Chapter 4 examines\nwhether neural responses to noxious stimulation mirror ethnic and gender differences in\nsubjective pain experiences. To that end, this chapter finds that while Hispanics and women display evidence for greater - albeit relatively unique - responses to the high intensity stimuli,\nonly women displayed greater contact-heat evoked brain potential relative to their control group.\nTaken together, these studies provide new insights into pain risk factors amongst Hispanic\nAmericans. These results may motivate efforts to identify additional biological and psychosocial\nmechanisms underlying the enhanced pain severity observed amongst Hispanic Americans, as\nwell as help guide the development of targeted clinical pain interventions for this population.
Author: Fenan S. Rassu
Language: English
Subfield: Physiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3131413208