State anxiety is associated with cardiovascular reactivity in young, healthy african americans.

Although several studies have shown that enhanced cardiovascular reactivity can predict hypertension development in African Americans, these findings have not been consistent among all studies examining reactivity and hypertension susceptibility. This inconsistency may be explained by the influence of anxiety (state and trait) on the blood pressure response to stress. Therefore, this study sought to determine whether anxiety is associated with blood pressure response to cold pressor (CP) and anger recall (AR) stress tests in young healthy African Americans.

Psychosocial factors contribute to resting blood pressure in African Americans.

Objectives: African Americans as a group have higher blood pressure than individuals of northern European ancestry (non-Hispanic Whites). We investigate whether psychosocial factors explain the resting blood pressure of healthy, community-dwelling African Americans in our study.

Participants: A convenience sample of self-reported normotensive African Americans aged 18-65 years who live in the North Carolina Triangle region.