Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Hypertension Prevalence: Reconsidering the Role of Chronic Stress.

• Autores: Margaret T. Hicken, Hedwig Lee, Jeffrey D. Morenoff, James S. House, David R. Williams
• Localización: American journal of public health, ISSN 0090-0036, Vol. 104, Nº. 1, 2014, págs. 117-123
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Objectives. We investigated the association between anticipatory stress, also known as racism-related vigilance, and hypertension prevalence in Black, Hispanic, and White adults. Methods. We used data from the Chicago Community Adult Health Study, a population-representative sample of adults (n = 3105) surveyed in 2001 to 2003, to regress hypertension prevalence on the interaction between race/ethnicity and vigilance in logit models. Results. Blacks reported the highest vigilance levels. For Blacks, each unit increase in vigilance (range = 0-12) was associated with a 4% increase in the odds of hypertension (odds ratio [OR] = 1.04; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.00, 1.09). Hispanics showed a similar but nonsignificant association (OR = 1.05; 95% CI = 0.99, 1.12), and Whites showed no association (OR = 0.95; 95% CI = 0.87, 1.03). Conclusions. Vigilance may represent an important and unique source of chronic stress that contributes to the well-documented higher prevalence of hypertension among Blacks than Whites; it is a possible contributor to hypertension among Hispanics but not Whites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]