Table 1.

Participant characteristics by emotional social support, Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (2000 – 2002)

		Level of Emotional Social Support (ESS)
	Overall	Low	Moderate	High	p-value*
N	6153	163	2593	3397
Emotional social support scale (mean, SD)	24.2 (5.23)	9.1 (1.6)	20.3 (3.4)	28.0 (1.8)	<0.001
High recent onset stress (%)	19.1	38.7	23.6	14.9	<0.001
High chronic stress (%)	17.8	37.4	22.2	13.5	<0.001
Age, years (mean, SD)	61.9 (10.14)	62.0 (9.9)	61.4 (10.3)	62.2 (10.1)	0.009
Female (%)	52.4	50.3	57.3	48.9	<0.001
Race (%)
White	39.3	35.0	39.8	39.1
Black	27.4	27.6	26.3	27.9
Hispanic	21.6	25.8	20.0	22.8
Chinese	11.8	11.7	13.9	10.3	0.156
Education (%)
High school or less	34.9	41.1	33.4	35.9
At least some college	65.1	58.9	66.7	64.2	0.307
Income (%)
<$20,000	22.4	35.2	24.7	20.0
$20,000 to <$40,000	26.7	37.1	28.8	24.5
$40,000 to <$75,000	10.1	7.6	10.3	10.0
$75,000+	40.8	20.1	36.1	45.5	<0.001
Marital status (%)
Married	61.4	30.7	50.8	71.1
Divorced/Separated	16.9	29.5	22.6	12.0
Widowed	12.6	18.4	14.6	10.7
Never married	9.1	21.5	11.9	6.3	<0.001
Hypertension (%)	44.4	49.1	42.4	45.5	0.11
Diabetes (%)	11.9	11.0	12.2	11.7	0.706
Alcoholic drinks per week (mean, SD)	2.4 (5.2)	2.6 (5.7)	2.3 (5.4)	2.4 (5.1)	0.516
BMI, kg/m2 (mean, SD)	28.3 (5.4)	28.9 (5.9)	28.1 (5.4)	28.4 (05.4)	0.248
Current smoker (%)	14.6	20.9	17.1	12.4	<0.001
Inflammatory markers (mean, SD)
C-reactive protein (mg/L)	2.4 (2.2)	2.7 (2.1)	2.4 (2.2)	2.4 (2.2)	0.125
Interleukin-6 (pg/mL)	1.5 (1.2)	1.7 (1.1)	1.5 (1.2)	1.5 (1.2)	0.077
Fibrinogen (mg/dL)	345.4 (72.8)	358.7 (65.5)	345.1 (71.9)	344.7 (73.7)	0.035

^*p-value for Wilcoxon rank-sum test for linear trend across categories of ESS.