Job strain and blood pressure in African Americans: The Pitt County Study

Objectives. This report examined whether job strain (or its components, decision latitude and job de mands) was associated with elevated blood pressure levels in a community-based sample of 726 African-American adults. Methods. Blood-pressure, anthropometric, behavioral, demographic, and psychosocial data were collected for the current cross-sectional analyses during home interviews conducted for the second wave (1993) of the Pitt County Study (North Carolina), a prospective cohort study of hypertension among African Americans. Results. Job strain was not associated with blood pressure among men or women in this study. However, men in the 80th percentile of decision latitude had more than a 50% decrease in the prevalence of hypertension compared with men in the 20th percentile (odds ratio = .46, 95% confidence interval = .22, .96). Conclusions. These results indicate that decision latitude may be important for hypertension risk among African-American men. More research is needed on African Americans to determine why job strain and its two component variables differ in their associations with blood pressure far men and women.