Life-course socioeconomic position and hypertension in African American men: the Pitt County Study.
OBJECTIVE
We investigated the odds of hypertension for Black men in relationship to their socioeconomic position (SEP) in both childhood and adulthood.


METHODS
On the basis of their parents' occupation, we classified 379 men in the Pitt County (North Carolina) Study into low and high childhood SEP. The men's own education, occupation, employment status, and home ownership status were used to classify them into low and high adulthood SEP. Four life-course SEP categories resulted: low childhood/low adulthood, low childhood/high adulthood, high childhood/low adulthood, and high childhood/high adulthood.


RESULTS
Low childhood SEP was associated with a 60% greater odds of hypertension, and low adulthood SEP was associated with a 2-fold greater odds of hypertension. Compared with men of high SEP in both childhood and adulthood, the odds of hypertension were 7 times greater for low/low SEP men, 4 times greater for low/high SEP men, and 6 times greater for high/low SEP men.


CONCLUSIONS
Greater access to material resources in both childhood and adulthood was protective against premature hypertension in this cohort of Black men. Though some parameter estimates were imprecise, study findings are consistent with both pathway and cumulative burden models of hypertension.
School of Public Health and Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. sjames@duke.edu
Sherman A
SA
James
John
J
Van Hoewyk
Robert F
RF
Belli
David S
DS
Strogatz
David R
DR
Williams
Trevillore E
TE
Raghunathan
D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D015438:Health Behavior / Q000208:ethnology; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000208:ethnology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009657:North Carolina / Q000453:epidemiology; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors