Blood Pressure, Relative Weight, and Psychosocial Resources

Research was conducted to determine the degree to which the effect of obesity on blood pressure was modified by sociocultural factors. A measure of psychosocial resources incorporating both access to social supports and coping styles, was developed in research in St. Lucia, a West Indian culture. The study sample consisted of 98 40-49-year olds randomly selected from a community. Obesity was measured by percent overweight using weight-for-height standards. Persons with lower psychosocial resources had higher blood pressures; overweight persons had higher blood pressures. Those persons greater than 10% overweight with low psychosocial resources had significantly higher blood pressures (p less than 0.05). Further analysis indicated that the direct effect of psychosocial resources was due primarily to the effect of social supports, while the interaction effect was due primarily to the effect of coping styles. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that specific sociocultural factors provide a protective function with respect to disease through some as yet unspecified physiologic mechanism.