Two of the leading threats to american health are high blood pressure and alcohol-abuse. It is well documented that high blood pressure is linearly related to higher rates of certain forms of coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke, and the relationship between hypertension and mortality is especially strong for African Americans. Moreover, African Americans alcoholics may run a greater risk than white alcoholics for blood pressure elevations as their drinking careers lengthen. Stressors, or the problems and pressures of life, have long been suspected as culprits linked to both hypertension and alcohol abuse. Racism has been reported to prevail as a primary stressor facing African Americans today. Several studies have described the potentially damaging social, economic, and political consequences of racism and its negative effects on individual well-being (Jaynes & Williams, 1989; Katz & Taylor, 1988; Schuman, Steeth, & Bobo, 1985). Recent studies from epidemiological literature have suggested that exposure to chronic stress of racism, prejudice, and discrimination may contribute to the disproportionately high rates of hypertension among African Americans. Social support has been purported to exert a buffering effect in ameliorating or attenuating the deleterious effects of stress on physical and mental health . Many epidemiological studies suggest that social support is related to reduced morbidity and mortality, particularly for cardiovascular disease. However, most of these studies have focused on white populations in the United States, Western Europe, and Scandinavia. This study proposes to investigate racism/discrimination, social support, alcohol use, and blood pressure in subjects that were drawn from a random sample survey of household residents in Erie county, New York. Overall, three waves of data are available for both cross-sectional and longitudinal data analysis.
The specific aims are: (l) To examine the influence of racism on alcohol use and BP in African Americans; (2) To determine if social support buffers these relations and investigate the relation between social network measures and social support; and (3) To assess the effects of age, gender, and socioeconomic status on the above relations.
