Financial stress linked to heart disease risk among African-Americans
Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of death in the U.S., and African-Americans are disproportionately affected. Prior studies have investigated how limited access to material resources due to financial hardship may influence health, but the association between the stress caused by financial hardship and coronary heart disease in African-Americans had not previously been examined. In a new study, researchers looked at the association between the psychological stress of financial hardship and CHD in this population and found that African-Americans who experienced moderate to high financial stress had greater risk of developing heart disease than those who did not. The study examined 2,256 participants in the Jackson Heart Study, a longitudinal cohort study of cardiovascular disease risks in African-American men and women living in the Jackson, Mississippi area. Results are published online Jan. 17 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. “Stress is known to contribute to disease risk, but the data from our...