UC Berkeley

INTRODUCTION: Racial discrimination is a distinct health threat that increases disease risk among Black Americans. Psychosocial stress may compromise health through inflammatory mechanisms. This study examines incident experiences of racial discrimination and changes in the inflammatory biomarker C-reactive protein (CRP) over a two-year period among Black women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE)-an inflammatory autoimmune disease sensitive to psychosocial stress and characterized by stark racial inequities in outcomes. METHODS: Data are from the Black Womens Experiences Living with Lupus (BeWELL) Study. Participants (n = 380) from metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia were enrolled from April 2015 to May 2017. Incident racial discrimination was assessed bi-annually via self-report using the Experiences of Discrimination measure. CRP was assessed annually over a two-year period. Latent change score analyses modeled longitudinal within-person associations between incident racial discrimination and change in log-transformed CRP from baseline to Year 2. RESULTS: Incident experiences of racial discrimination were associated with elevated log-CRP across the two-year study period (b = 0.039, SE = 0.017, 95% CI: 0.006, 0.071). For each domain of incident racial discrimination experienced, CRP increased 3.98%. CONCLUSION: This study contributes to growing evidence on the biological consequences of racism and is the first to document an association between incident racial discrimination and changes in inflammation among Black women with SLE. Racial inequities in SLE outcomes and other diseases driven by inflammatory pathways may be explained in part through experiences of racial discrimination.