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Objective: Short sleep duration has been linked with a wide array of poor mental and physical health outcomes. Such risks, however, may be moderated by demographic factors such as gender and race/ethnicity. In a diverse community sample, the current study examined the relationship between gender, race/ethnicity and objectively measured sleep duration, controlling for select potential confounds., Methods: Participants were 300 community adults (50% female), aged 21 to 70 years, and included 60% non-Hispanic Whites, 15% non-Hispanic Blacks, 19% Hispanic/Latino, and 6% other. As part of a larger study, participants wore an actigraphy device over two nights to assess sleep duration (averaged across both nights). Gender and race/ethnicity were used as grouping variables in a two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) predicting objectively assessed total sleep time, with age, income, and employment status as covariates., Results: On average, males slept 34 min less than females (P=.002). After controlling for socioeconomic factors, there was a gender by race/ethnicity interaction (P=.030). Within males, Hispanics slept 45 min less than non-Hispanic Whites (P=.002) and 57 min less than non-Hispanic others (P=.008). Males also slept significantly less than females within the non-Hispanic White (difference=-22.9; P=.016) and the Hispanic (difference=-77.1; P<.001) groups., Conclusions: Extending previous research, the current study provides additional evidence for differences in objective sleep duration based on gender and race/ethnicity in daily life. These data suggest that risk associated with sleep duration is patterned in important ways across gender and race/ethnicity; such information can be used to tailor prevention efforts., (Copyright © 2017 National Sleep Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Perceived social support has been reliably related to lower rates of morbidity and mortality. However, studies modeling C-reactive protein (CRP) as an important biological pathway linking social support to health have produced inconsistent results. Given purported ethnic/racial differences in sensitivity to social resources, the present study tested if ethnicity/race moderated the link between perceived support and CRP in a diverse community sample of 300 participants from the North Texas Heart Study. Consistent with prior research, there was no overall link between social support and CRP levels. However, the association between social support and high sensitivity (hs)-CRP levels was moderated by ethnicity/race as perceived support predicted lower hs-CRP levels primarily in African Americans. These results suggest the importance of considering how ethnicity/race may inform models on the complex biological mechanisms linking social support to health., (© 2015 Society for Psychophysiological Research.)

Background: The authors investigated whether residential segregation (the degree to which racial/ethnic groups live separately from one another in a geographic area) 1) was associated with mortality among urban women with breast cancer, 2) explained racial/ethnic disparities in mortality, and 3) whether its association with mortality varied by race/ethnicity., Methods: Using Texas Cancer Registry data, all-cause mortality and breast-cancer mortality were examined among 109,749 urban black, Hispanic, and white women aged ≥50 years who were diagnosed with breast cancer from 1995 to 2009. Racial (black) segregation and ethnic (Hispanic) segregation of patient's neighborhoods were measured and were compared with the larger metropolitan statistical area using the location quotient measure. Shared frailty Cox proportional hazard models were used to nest patients within residential neighborhoods (census tract) and were controlled for race/ethnicity, age, diagnosis year, tumor stage, grade, histology, neighborhood poverty, and county-level mammography availability., Results: Greater black segregation and Hispanic segregation were adversely associated with cause-specific mortality and all-cause mortality. For example, in adjusted models, Hispanic segregation was associated with cause-specific mortality (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.24; 95% confidence interval, 1.05-1.46). Compared with whites, blacks had higher mortality for both outcomes, whereas Hispanics demonstrated equivalent (cause-specific) or lower (all-cause) mortality. Segregation did not explain racial/ethnic disparities in mortality. Within each race/ethnicity strata, segregation was either adversely associated with mortality or was not significant., Conclusions: Among urban women with breast cancer in Texas, segregation has an independent, adverse association with mortality, and the effect of segregation varies by patient race/ethnicity. The novel application of a small-area measure of relative racial segregation should be examined in other cancer types with documented racial/ethnic disparities across varied geographic areas., (© 2015 American Cancer Society.)