Segregated Neighborhoods May Influence Blood Pressure

(Reuters Health) - African-Americans who move from segregated neighborhoods to more racially diverse communities might experience improvements in their blood pressure, a U.S. study suggests. When researchers looked at the “top number” known as systolic blood pressure - the pressure blood exerts against artery walls when the heart beats - they found moving away from segregated neighborhoods mattered. Relocating to less segregated communities was associated with average decreases of 1.2 to 1.3 mmHG (millimeters of mercury) in systolic blood pressure. “At the population level, a reduction of this magnitude is believed to be sufficient to substantially reduce the occurrence of adverse cardiovascular events like coronary heart disease, stroke, and heart failure,” said lead study author Kiarri Kershaw of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “These findings are important because they point to the important role social policies can have in health,” Kershaw said by email. In adults, 120/80 mmHG or lower is considered a normal or healthy blood pressure. For the current study, researchers followed 2,280 African-Americans over more than two decades to see how switching neighborhoods impacted blood pressure. When they joined the study in 1985 and 1986 participants lived in one of four U.S. cities: Chicago; Birmingham, Alabama; Minneapolis; and Oakland, California. Most of the participants, 82 percent, started out in highly...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news