ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Life-Course Epidemiology and Social Inequalities in Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1526636
This article is part of the Research TopicExploring Health Disparities in Black Communities: Historical Perspectives, Present Challenges, and Future DirectionsView all 7 articles
Men of Color Health Awareness Intervention: Changes in Adrenocortical Activity Assessed Using Fingernail Cortisol
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, United States
- 2Men of Color Health Awareness (MOCHA) Project, Springfield, MA, United States
- 3Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
A randomized controlled trial (# NCT03745703; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03745703) assessed the efficacy of a tailored stress reduction intervention (Men of Color Health Awareness; MOCHA) aimed at improving the health of middleaged African-American men. The present paper presents an exploratory study of whether the intervention affected chronic output of the stress hormone cortisol using the novel approach of measuring cortisol accumulation in fingernail samples. Each fingernail sample was hypothesized to contain cortisol deposited over approximately a 3-month period before collection. Methods: Samples were obtained at three time points: prior to beginning of the intervention (T1; which provided an index of cortisol section during a 3-month wait-list control period); at the end of the 10-week intervention (T2); and at 12-week follow-up (T3). Self-reports of perceived stress, depression, and anxiety were collected at the same three time points plus one more: T0, which occurred 12 weeks before T1 and provided baseline psychosocial data.Results: Nail cortisol concentrations were unexpectedly higher at T2 and T3 than at T1, although only the difference at T2 reached statistical significance. Nail cortisol was not associated with any self-reported psychosocial measure at any time point.The nail cortisol data suggest that long-term life stressors experienced by the participants may have led to a suppression of adrenal cortisol release, which was at least transiently ameliorated by the MOCHA intervention. The lack of any apparent relationships between cortisol
Keywords: stress, cortisol, Fingernails, Clinical Trial, intervention, African-American, Men
Received: 12 Nov 2024; Accepted: 27 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Meyer, Markham Jr., Scott, Valdez, Robinson and Buchanan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jerrold S Meyer, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.