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. 1997 Aug;87(8):1297–1302. doi: 10.2105/ajph.87.8.1297

Job strain and blood pressure in African Americans: the Pitt County Study.

A B Curtis 1, S A James 1, T E Raghunathan 1, K H Alcser 1
PMCID: PMC1381089  PMID: 9279264

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: This report examined whether job strain (or its components, decision latitude and job demands) was associated with elevated blood pressure levels in a community-based sample of 726 African-American adults. METHODS: Blood-pressure, anthropometric, behavioral, demographic, and psychosocial data were collected for the current cross-sectional analyses during home interviews conducted for the second wave (1993) of the Pitt County Study (North Carolina), a prospective cohort study of hypertension among African Americans. RESULTS: Job strain was not associated with blood pressure among men or women in this study. However, men in the 80th percentile of decision latitude had more than a 50% decrease in the prevalence of hypertension compared with men in the 20th percentile (odds ratio = .46, 95% confidence interval = .22, .96). CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that decision latitude may be important for hypertension risk among African-American men. More research is needed on African Americans to determine why job strain and its two component variables differ in their associations with blood pressure for men and women.

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Selected References

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