Cultural mismatch and accelerated epigenetic age during the transition to college

Previous literature has highlighted home-school cultural value mismatch – a cultural mismatch between interdependent family obligations and independent academic obligations, as a psychosocial stressor among first-generation college students from historically marginalized backgrounds. However, no studies to date have examined its association with an objective biomarker of health. Given accumulating evidence linking higher psychosocial stress to accelerated epigenetic age – a measure of one's biological age based on DNA methylation levels, we hypothesized that higher levels of cultural mismatch would be associated with accelerated epigenetic age. In this Transition to College Study, historically marginalized students (N = 64; M_age = 18.0; SD = 0.4; 82.8 % Latinx; 87.5 % first-generation college) completed an online survey and provided a salivary sample during their first semester at a public four-year university. GrimAge, FitAge and DunedinPACE, second and third-generation epigenetic aging measures, were used for analysis. Hierarchical linear regressions, controlling for chronological age, ethnicity, biological sex, body-mass-index, smoking and alcohol use, and parental socioeconomic status, were used to test our hypothesis. Results indicated that higher levels of mismatch between family and academic obligations were associated with accelerated epigenetic age as measured by GrimAge and FitAge, but not DunedinPACE. Our findings highlight a novel association between this mismatch and biomarkers known to predict mortality and future disease risk. Implications for research and interventions in higher education are discussed.