FIESTA!

In the United States, the known associations between social disadvantage, stress, and impaired health have been called into question by the Hispanic-Health-Paradox. The Hispanic-Health-Paradox posits that immigrants and their children have better health, exhibit higher resilience, and have longer life-expectancy than their native-born counterparts, despite greater exposure to environmental stressors including high levels of poverty, lower education, language barriers, marginalization, isolation, and other socioeconomic disadvantages. Accordingly the FIESTA study is being done to gain better understanding about the relationship between psychosocial stress, and acculturation on measurements of cellular aging of Mexican mothers, mothers of Mexican descent, and preschool age children. Information from this study will help us understand the impact on obesity risk and other related health problems as well as improving the physical and mental health of families of Mexican descent. By elucidating biological processes confound within the Hispanic-Health-Paradox, we hope to identify the social and biological processes that buffer the health effects of social disadvantage and stress.