Where you live can affect your blood pressure, study suggests
Lack of resources in racially segregated neighborhoods linked to health impact
LOCATION LINK Moving from a highly segregated neighborhood to one with less segregation is associated with a decrease in systolic blood pressure among black adults, a new study finds.
James Gathany/CDC
For black adults, moving out of a racially segregated neighborhood is linked to a drop in blood pressure, according to a new study. The finding adds to growing evidence of an association between a lack of resources in many predominately black neighborhoods and adverse health conditions among their residents, such as diabetes and obesity.
Systolic blood pressure — the pressure in blood vessels when the heart beats — of black adults who left their highly segregated communities decreased just over 1 millimeter of mercury on average, researchers report online May 15 in JAMA Internal Medicine. This decline, though small, could reduce the overall incidence of heart failure and coronary heart disease.
“It’s the social conditions, not the segregation itself, that’s driving the relationship between segregation and blood pressure,
