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Study: Victims of racism risk high blood pressure
October 23, 1996
Web posted at: 8:40 p.m. EDT
From Correspondent Jeff Levine
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new study on high blood pressure finds that racism can be a key risk factor for hypertension among African-Americans.
"In African-Americans, the experience of discrimination in combination with the way that they responded to unfair treatment might affect their blood pressure in an adverse way," Dr. Stephen Sidney of Kaiser Permanente said.
African-Americans are twice as likely as whites to suffer from high blood pressure. In the past, researchers have pointed to many possible explanations, ranging from diet to heredity factors.
"It makes sense that if there was less racism and discrimination that there would be less hypertension in the African-American population."
-- Dr. Richard Ashby, Alexandria Hospital
The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, involved about 4,000 African-Americans and whites. Among the African-Americans surveyed, 80 percent said they had experienced some type of racism. Researchers concluded that that stress created racial differences in blood pressure as great as 56 percent.
But the study pointed to some contradictions. For instance, working class African-Americans who had the highest blood pressure reported the fewest episodes of racism.
By contrast, professional women and men who took a stand against racism had lower blood pressure. That result seemed to indicate that confronting racism can be a healthier response than suppressing the feelings, said Lawrence Gary of Howard University.
Researchers hope their findings will raise awareness that discrimination is a medical issue as well as a social one.
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