The grant from CEDA funded completion of a paper which grew out of a recently completed dissertation. This involved changes and additional analysis in response to first and second round reviewer comments. The paper has now been accepted and is forthcoming in Social Science & Medicine with the title, "Neuroendocrine biomarkers, social relations, and the costs of cumulative stress in Taiwan."

The paper itself explored whether there was a link between a number of life stressors and basal levels of neuroendocrine biomarkers. Life stressors in the study included low education, living alone, being widowed, and report of psychological stress, and basal levels were measured for cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine, and DHEAS. The study was nationally representative of the elderly and near elderly in Taiwan and was conducted in 2000.

The major findings of the paper are twofold. First, there is little evidence to support the hypothesis that baseline levels of the neuroendocrine markers stem from stressful life histories. Second, report of current stress (among women only) is positively correlated with higher NAL levels. Taken together, these findings question whether levels of the neuroendocrine markers of the AL construct reflect long-term processes over the life course (as predicted by allostatic theory).