By William J. Cromie

Gazette Staff

Racial discrimination and unfair treatment may be associated with high blood pressure, according to a School of Public Health scientist.

"Public health researchers have rarely attempted to examine how people's experience of and reactions to racial discrimination can affect health status," says Nancy Krieger, assistant professor at SPH.

She and Stephen Sidney of the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute studied 4,086 black men and women, aged 25 to 37 years old. The subjects are part of a large national study called CARDIA (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults).

Eighty percent of the young men and women reported experiences of racial discrimination in situations that included hiring, work, housing, medical care, in public places, or involving police and courts.

Working-class blacks who reported no discrimination had higher blood pressure than their counterparts who reported incidents of discrimination. Blood pressure also was higher among those accepting unfair treatment as a fact of life, rather than taking action.

Krieger and Sidney looked at such possible causes of elevated pressure as obesity, exercise, age, educational status, and alcohol as possible causes. "After removing these as factors we still had an unexplained rise in blood pressure which we attribute to suppressed or internalized anger."

Other studies have concluded that holding in anger in both blacks and whites is associated with elevated blood pressure.

Working-class blacks who admitted moderate discrimination had lower blood pressure. "This suggests the importance of acknowledging and not suppressing experiences of discrimination," Krieger notes. In other words, there appears to be an advantage to letting off steam.

Black professional women who took action in response to unfair treatment had the lowest blood pressure. In fact, their readings did not differ from white professional women.

Black professional men who responded to acts of discrimination with action also boasted blood pressures no higher than their white counterparts.

Kreiger noted in a telephone interview that "enhanced social resources among black professionals may contribute to a greater willingness to name and challenge discriminatory treatment, thereby reducing their risk of elevated blood pressure."

Overall, hypertension is twice as common in blacks as in whites.

"This is the first attempt to understand how racial discrimination affects health in conjunction with social class and gender," she continued. "Our results are preliminary, but they raise questions that deserve further study."

The complete report appears in the latest issue of the American Journal of Public Health.