Relationship of racial stressors to blood pressure responses and anger expression in Black college students.

Abstract

The physiological effects of racism, as a stressor, were examined as they related to blood pressure (BP) and anger experiences in Black college students. Current research has failed to consider the stressful effects of racism as a factor contributing to the higher incidence of essential hypertension among Blacks. Twenty-seven Black college students viewed three excerpts showing racist situations involving Blacks; anger-provoking, nonracist situations; and neutral situations. After each scene, BP was taken, and a mood checklist was administered. The Framingham Anger Scale and the Anger Expression Scale were administered. Analyses revealed that BP significantly increased during the presentation of racist stimuli but not of anger-provoking or neutral stimuli. Self-reports of state anger, as measured by the mood checklist, were significant for both the anger-provoking and racist stimuli. BP scores were significantly correlated to the two trait anger measures. Exposure to racist stimuli was associated with BP increases among Blacks. Such cumulative exposure to racism may have important implications for the etiology of essential hypertension.

Race, Race-Based Discrimination, and Health Outcomes Among African Americans

“…Some studies have shown a negative health impact of repeated experiences with race discrimination in African Americans, particularly when the response is one of a passive coping style (Krieger 1990, Krieger & Sidney 1996. These results suggest that repeated experiences with race-based discrimination are associated with higher resting systolic blood pressure levels (Armstead et al 1989, Clark 1992, Clark et al 1999, Harrell et al 2003, James et al 1984, McNeilly et al 1996 and more frequent reports of being diagnosed with hypertension (Krieger 1990, Krieger & Sidney 1996. Drawing from a larger body of work in this area, one can hypothesize that living in neighborhoods characterized by concentrations of poverty and violence may have harmful effects on both the immune system and neuroendocrine responses.…”

Effects of social stressors on cardiovascular reactivity in black and white women

“…Consistent with previous research (6), we did not find evidence that Blacks are generally more reactive to stressors than Whites, yet we did find that, relative to White women, Black women tended to get more aroused to a stressor that could be construed as racist than to a nonracial stressor. Previous studies (26)(27)(28) also have shown that racist stimuli can generate greater sympathetic arousal than nonracist stimuli among Black responders. However, because these previous studies lacked a comparison group of White participants, one cannot conclude from them that the differential reactivity to diverse social stressors is unique to Black responders.…”

Measuring Social Class in US Public Health Research: Concepts, Methodologies, and Guidelines

“…Beyond incorporating more comprehensive and theoretically grounded measures of social class and other aspects of socioeconomic position, studies may need to address how class-related experiences of racial/ethnic and gender discrimination (50,53,57,75) may harm health (94,105,147,190). Provocative data suggest that experiences of racial discrimination may be associated with blood pressure among African Americans (9,79,87,95) and that patterns of association may vary by both social class and gender (95). Links between socioeconomic position and health may also be affected by factors pertaining to acculturation, migration, and generational status among Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, Latinos, and other racial/ethnic groups with large immigrant subpopulations (190).…”