The Community Child Health Network Life Stress Interview: a brief chronic stress measure for community health research

ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives: Chronic stress is implicated in many theories as a contributor to a wide range of physical and mental health problems. The current study describes the development of a chronic stress measure that was based on the UCLA Life Stress Interview (LSI) and adapted in collaboration with community partners for use in a large community health study of low-income, ethnically diverse parents of infants in the USA (Community Child Health Network [CCHN]). We describe the instrument, its purpose and adaptations, implementation, and results of a reliability study in a subsample of the larger study cohort. Design and Methods: Interviews with 272 mothers were included in the present study. Chronic stress was assessed using the CCHN LSI, an instrument designed for administration by trained community interviewers to assess four domains of chronic stress, each rated by interviewers. Results: Significant correlations ranging from small to moderate in size between chronic stress scores on this measure, other measures of stress, biomarkers of allostatic load, and mental health provide initial evidence of construct and concurrent validity. Reliability data for interviewer ratings are also provided. Conclusions: This relatively brief interview (15 minutes) is available for use and may be a valuable tool for researchers seeking to measure chronic stress reliably and validly in future studies with time constraints.

KEYWORDS:

• Chronic stress
• stress measures
• Life Stress Interview
• community research
• CBPR
• parenting stress

Acknowledgements

We wish to sincerely thank the work of our many community interviewers, study participants, and research assistants who contributed to this work. CCHN reflects joint endeavors of five local sites:

Baltimore: Baltimore City Healthy Start and Johns Hopkins University

Community PI: M. Vance

Academic PI: C. S. Minkovitz

Co-Is: P. O'Campo, P. Schafer

Project Coordinators: N. Sankofa, K. Walton

Lake County, Illinois: Lake County Health Department and Community Health Center and the NorthShore University Health System

Community PI: K. Wagenaar

Academic PI: M. Shalowitz

Co-Is: E. Adam, G. Duncan*, A. Schoua-Glusberg, C. McKinney, T. McDade, C. Simon

Project Coordinator: B. Clark-Kauffman

Los Angeles: Healthy African American Families, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, University of California, Los Angeles

Community PI: L. Jones

Academic PI: C. Hobel

Co-PIs: C. Dunkel Schetter, M. C. Lu

Co-I: B. Chung

Project Coordinators: F. Jones, D. Serafin, D. Young

North Carolina: East Carolina University, NC Division of Public Health, NC Eastern Baby Love Plus Consortium, and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Community PIs: S. Evans, J. Ruffin, R. Woolard

Academic PI: J. Thorp

Co-Is J. DeClerque, C. Dolbier, C. Lorenz

Project Coordinators: L. S. Sahadeo, K. Salisbury

Washington, DC: Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, Virginia Tech, and Washington Hospital Center, and Developing Families Center

Community PI: L. Patchen

Academic PI: S. L. Ramey

Academic Co-PI: R. Gaines Lanzi

Co-Is: L. V. Klerman, M. Miodovnik, C. T. Ramey, L. Randolph

Project Coordinator: N. Timraz

Community Coordinator: R. German

Data Coordination and Analysis Center (Pennsylvania State University)

PI: V. M. Chinchilli

Project Coordinator: G. Snyder

Co-Is: R. Belue, G. Brown Faulkner*, M. Hillemeier, I. Paul, M. L. Shaffer

Biostatisticians: E. Lehman, C. Stetter

Data Managers: J. Schmidt, K. Cerullo, S. Whisler

Programmers: J. Fisher, J. Boyer, M. Payton

NIH

Program Scientists: V. J. Evans and T. Raju, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; Linda Weglicki, National Institute of Nursing Research

Program Officers: Michael Spittel*, and, Marian Willinger, NICHD; and Yvonne Bryan*, NINR.

Steering Committee Chairs: M. Phillippe (University of Vermont) and E. Fuentes-Afflick* (University of California – San Francisco School of Medicine)

*Indicates those who participated in the planning phase of the CCHN.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2015.1058368.

Additional information

Funding

The Community Child Health Network (CCHN) is a community-based participatory research network supported through cooperative agreements with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [U HD44207, U HD44219, U HD44226, U HD44245, U HD44253, U HD54791, U HD54019, U HD44226-05S1, U HD44245-06S1, R03 HD59584] and the National Institute for Nursing Research [U NR008929].