title: Blood Pressure Dipping and Urban Stressors in Young Adult African Americans.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Blunted nocturnal blood pressure (BP) dipping is an early marker of cardiovascular risk that is prevalent among African Americans.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We evaluated relationships of BP dipping to neighborhood and posttraumatic stress and sleep in urban residing young adult African Americans.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred thirty-six black, predominately African American, men and women with a mean age of 22.9 years (SD = 4.6) filled out surveys and were interviewed and had two, 24-h ambulatory BP recordings.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thirty-eight percent had BP dipping ratios < .10. Wake after sleep onset (WASO), neighborhood disorder and neighborhood poverty rates but not posttraumatic stress symptoms, and other sleep measures correlated significantly with dipping ratios. Models with the neighborhood measures that also included WASO increased the explained variance.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Studies elucidating mechanisms underlying effects of neighborhoods on BP dipping and the role of disrupted sleep, and how they can be mitigated are important directions for future research.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Howard University College of Medicine, 520 W St. N.W., Washington, DC, 20059, USA, TMellman@Howard.edu.
authors.forename: Thomas A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Mellman
authors.forename: Tyish S Hall
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: Ihori
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.forename: Soleman H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Abu-Bader
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lavela
authors.forename: Duaa
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Altaee
authors.forename: Latesha
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: McLaughlin
authors.forename: Otelio S
authors.initials: OS
authors.lastname: Randall
mesh_terms: D001741:Black or African American; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology*; D018660:Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012307:Risk Factors; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology; D014505:Urban Population; D055815:Young Adult