Biosocial Resilience in Adolescents: Potential Insight into Biomarkers of Resilience

Background: Resilience, the ability to return to a base state after stress or trauma, has become increasingly important in social work literature.  It has been linked to improved outcomes after exposure to biological illness and stressful familial events.  Despite the growing importance of the construct however, little data exist specifically identifying sources of resilience in individuals and researchers have failed to specifically identify mechanisms of resilience consistently.  While no facet of human nature can be declared to be solely biological, social work research has frequently neglected the importance of biological influences on social behaviors.  Because of the dearth of research into biological resilience in humans, there are many potential pathways for resilient behavior.  By investigating the association between the social mechanisms of resilience (including race, gender, and age) and the biomarkers of stress (including C-Reactive protein, glucose metabolism, and viral markers), the concept of resilience may be clarified and new opportunities for interdisciplinary research will be identified.  

Methods:  A single measure of resilience will be created by assessing resilient behaviors at 4 waves of data collection within the National Longitudinal Adolescent to Adult Health Study (ADD Health) , focused on mental and biologic health markers.  By assessing longitudinal health markers commonly associated with resilience, resilient individuals may potentially be identified if change in these markers is identified across the waves, namely a decrease in well-being at a single wave followed by a return to a base-level measurement established.  Individuals showing a significantly lowered well-being score in one wave and stable scores on other waves will be categorized as highly resilient.  Additionally, those individuals in the top quartile on a scale of trauma who also exhibit average or above well-being will be identified as resilient.  Following the identification of the resilient individuals, we used logistic regression to identify predictors of experiencing resilience after a period of stress or exposure to increased trauma.

Results: Race, gender, and age were found to be significant predictors of resilient behavior.  Being African-American or Hispanic both positively predicted experiencing resilience, as did being over age 20 at Wave I of ADD Health.  Being female was found to be a negative predictor of experiencing resilience.  Although some categories did not reach statistical significance, odds ratios suggest that certain groups, including mixed-race individuals and those with 2 or more subclinical symptoms of inflammation are at heightened likelihood of exhibiting resilience.

Conclusions: It is important to consider the potential importance of biomarkers related to the concept of resilience.  Results suggest that there might be a racial distinction to those individuals deemed resilient.  While much of this can potentially be explained by social phenomena, C-Reactive protein levels, as well as subclinical symptoms suggest that there is a biological function to resilience.  By increasing our understanding of the relationship between inflammation and resilient outcomes, we potentially can create better operationalizations of resilience.