Media Relations
News Releases
For Release Upon Receipt - March 30, 2007
Contact:
Sharon Britton, 617-638-4052, sbritton@bu.edu
NEIGHBORHOOD HAS IMPACT ON BLACK WOMEN’S RISK FOR HYPERTENSION
(Boston) - Living in a poor neighborhood increases a black woman's risk for hypertension even if she has a relatively high income or education level and exercises regularly, say researchers at Boston University School of Public Health, Slone Epidemiology Center. These findings will be published in the April 2007 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, an abstract is currently available at http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/4/718.
“These findings indicate that lowering hypertension risk in black women will require a greater understanding of the underlying social inequalities that adversely affect health and of the mechanisms and pathways that are amenable to intervention," explains Yvette Cozier, lead author of the study.
Researchers used data collected in the Black Women's Health Study (BWHS), a collaboration between researchers at Boston University and Howard University. BWHS is a follow-up study of over 59,000 U.S. black women who were between 21 – 69 years old when the study began in 1995.
Median housing value from U.S. Census Bureau data was used as a measure of neighborhood socioeconomic status. Cases of hypertension were identified through mailed questionnaires, and the accuracy of self-report was found to be very high.
The Slone Epidemiology Center is a public health research organization that focuses on studying the etiology of disease in adult and pediatric populations.
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Contact Lisa Brown, brownl@bu.edu, 617-414-1401 to receive a copy of the article or to arrange an interview with Dr. Cozier.