Everyday life for black American adults: Stress, emotional, and cardiovascular responses.

The purpose of this study was to examine the stress process in Black American adults by exploring chronic stress, emotions, age, body mass index (BMI), and blood pressure within the context of gender and socioeconomic position (SEP). A synthesized sociopsychophysiological conceptual framework based upon the environmental, psychological, and physiological traditions of stress research, empirical and scholarly literature, and critical reasoning about everyday life for Black American adults provided structure for the study. A model of Everyday Life for Black American Adults was tested using structural equation modeling. The convenience sample of Black American adults (N = 211) ranged from 25 to 79 years of age (M = 44.90). Participants were highly educated and 45% were married. Household size ranged from one to eight people (M = 2.8) with family per capita incomes ranging from zero to $75,000 with an average of $19,000. Although chi-square was significant (chi2 = 18.05, df = 10, p = .054), the GFI (.98), TLI (.93), and CFI (.98) indexes each indicated good fit of the model which explained 27% of the variance in systolic blood pressure and 17% of the variance in diastolic blood pressure. SEP had a significant effect on chronic stress (beta = -0.376, p > .001) and chronic stress had a significant effect on negative affect (beta = .489, b = 1.809, p < .001). However, neither SEP nor chronic stress had significant effects on blood pressure. Interestingly, emotions did not have significant effects on blood pressure. Women had higher negative affect scores than men (beta = -.155, b = 2.771, p < .01); however, men's diastolic blood pressures were higher than women's (beta = -.132, b = -3.584, p < .05). As anticipated, age and BMI had significant effects blood pressure. However, findings indicated that gender, SEP, chronic stress, and emotions did not have the expected negative effects on blood pressure in highly educated, high income Black American adults. Findings of this study are useful to nurses and other health professionals in identifying health promotion interventions to eliminate disparities in health for Black Americans.Ph.D.Black studiesHealth and Environmental SciencesNursingPublic healthSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/129200/2/3042047.pd