Objective: To determine whether the association between perceived social support or strain in close relationships and sleep outcomes varies by gender. Methods: Participants were selected from the Biomarker projects of either the MIDUS II or MIDUS Refresher study if they were in a married-or married-like relationship and shared a bed with their partner (N=989). A subsample also participated in a seven-day sleep study (n=282). Perceived social support and strain from partner, family, and friends were examined by self-report questionnaires. We used the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, sleep daily diary, and actigraphy to measure both subjective and objective sleep. Results: Social support and strain were both associated with sleep outcomes. Specifically, higher social support was associated with fewer daily reports of light sleep and feeling more rested in the morning, while higher social strain was associated with higher clinical sleep disturbance. For women, but not men, social support was significantly associated with lower daily sleep disturbance while perceived social strain was significantly associated with higher daily sleep disturbance, lighter sleep, feeling less rested in the morning, lower sleep efficiency, and longer sleep onset latency. Conclusions: Mainly among women, social support and strain are associated with an important transdiagnostic health outcome -- sleep -- which may have implications for a wide range of health disparities. Interpersonal stressors may increase health risks differently for women compared to men and one mechanism that may link social relationships to long-term health outcomes is sleep.

Nocturnal sleep is pivotal for adolescent health, influencing short-term functioning and long-term neurobiological development, and predicting future mental and physical well-being. While research on individual-level factors affecting adolescent sleep abounds, investigations into social determinants of sleep including social adversity are just emerging, with limited exploration using both self-reported and physiological sleep measures. Further, although sleep duration is one of the most studied pediatric sleep dimensions, the precise biobehavioral mechanisms by which sleep influences health remain unclear. Understanding these mechanisms is crucial for targeted interventions to mitigate health disparities necessitating investigations into within-person changes in sleep duration and their impact on biobehavioral pathways to health such as affect and inflammation. This gap may be attributed to insufficient examination of these mechanisms in adolescent sleep interventions as well as the correlational nature of much of the existing literature, or experiments that do not generalize to the daily lives of adolescents. This dissertation aimed to determine how social adversity factors contribute to sleep outcomes among adolescents (Chapter 1), and to employ a randomized, multi-night sleep extension protocol in ecologically valid home settings to examine the causal effect of sleep duration on daily affect (Chapter 2) and inflammation (Chapter 3), the biobehavioral pathways that have wide-ranging implications for social, emotional, and physical development.Healthy adolescents (14-17 years) participated in 1 week of usual sleep. Subsequently, adolescents who were identified as short sleepers (obtaining less than 8 hours of sleep per night), were selected and randomized to either a sleep extension protocol (Van Dyk et al., 2017) or a habitual sleep condition for 2 weeks. In both conditions, the experimental weeks involved establishing fixed bedtime and risetimes to reduce sleep variability. The first aim of the dissertation (i.e., the role of social adversity predictors in sleep outcomes) used the data from the usual sleep week. Aims 2 and 3 of the dissertation (i.e., the role of sleep duration in affect and inflammation) were examined using the experimental part of the project among short-sleeping adolescents. Collectively, the research presented in this dissertation contributes to understanding of the associations between social adversity, sleep patterns, affective experiences, and systemic inflammation among adolescents. These findings emphasize the significance of considering both past and current social adversity in understanding sleep among adolescents. Furthermore, the findings underscore the importance of broadening the focus of sleep research beyond sleep duration.

Few studies investigate the impact of psychosocial stress on acute testosterone activity in adolescents, despite theoretical understandings that testosterone’s relationship with aggressive behavior is dependent upon stress or challenge contexts. Effective administration of laboratory stress, biospecimen collection and storage protocol, and testosterone assaying processes are all important methodological considerations that may explain why the link between testosterone and acute stress response remains unclear in this population. Additionally, the biopsychosocial factors that may predict acute testosterone reactivity in this population also remains unknown. As such, the current study addresses these gaps by examining testosterone activity (via salivary samples) across the administration of a Trier Social Stress Test in a sample of 88 adolescents (46.4% female, Mage = 13.91 years, SDage = 1.57). A series of nine biopsychosocial factors (age, gender, pubertal status, affective reactivity, prosocial behaviors, conduct problems, emotional and behavioral regulation, and exposure to early life adversity) were examined as potential predictors of (1) overall testosterone levels and (2) acute changes of testosterone across the administration of laboratory stress. Results indicated a robust response to psychosocial stress, supporting the notion that testosterone mounts an acute stress response in adolescents. However, only age and sex uniquely predicted overall testosterone and acute reactivity to stress in this sample. These findings suggest a methodological framework for capturing testosterone reactivity to acute stress, and provide evidence for future research to clarify the role of testosterone reactivity in adolescent behavior.

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