Anthropology and the study of chronic disease: Adolescent blood pressure in corpus Christi, Texas

In this anthropological study, the influence of psychosocial adaptation, and social and biological factors upon the blood pressures of Mexican-American adolescents and adolescents of European descent (Anglo-Americans) in Corpus Christi, Texas were examined. Black Americans have one of the highest rates of hypertension of any population in the world. The reasons for this are not entirely clear. Epidemiologic studies have shown that although clinically defined hypertension usually does not appear until adulthood, systematic differences in the average blood pressures of black and white Americans begin to appear in adolescence. If presumed stressors such as a high rate of poverty and a history of discrimination and prejudice are in some way related to the prevalence of hypertension among black Americans, then Mexican-Americans of south Texas, who also have experienced a high rate of poverty and a history of discrimination, might also be expected to have a higher rate of hypertension than other Americans. Mexican-American youths were found to have a significantly higher mean systolic pressure than Anglo youths. Mexican-Americans also were found to have significantly more problematic psychosocial adaptation. There was little relationship, however, between problematic psychosocial adaptation and high blood pressure. Subsequent statistical analyses, including an analysis of covariance, indicated that other variables, including the heaviness of body build and length of residence in Corpus Christi, were of much greater importance in predicting blood pressure. Implications of these findings for social epidemiology and health promotion are discussed.