RISE Up Study- stress

The Reducing Inequities through Social and Educational Change (RISE Up) Study is a natural experiment comparing a cohort of mostly Latinx adolescents from low-income neighborhoods of Los Angeles who applied to high-performing, public, charter high schools in 2013 and 2014. The study examines those who applied to these high performing schools, comparing lottery winners vs. lottery waitlsted students. Prior results of this study have found that lottery winners had lower rates of substance use and delinquent behaviors compared to those waitlisted. We also found that lottery winners had lower rates of self-reported obesity and poor physical health, but only among males. Among females, lottery winners had much higher rates of obesity and poor physical health. Thus, we hypothesized that exposure to high performing schools would lead to more stress among females, but lead to lower or no differences in stress among males. We hypothesized similar patterns regarding self-reported discrimination.

Our results regarding stress were consistent with our hypothesis. We found that among females, lottery winners reported more stress than lottery waitlisters. Among males, lottery winners reported less stress than lottery waitlisters. We found no differences in self-reported discrimination among lottery winners vs. waitlisted among males or females.