Historical Differences in School Term Length and Measured Blood Pressure: Contributions to Persistent Racial Disparities among US-Born Adults

Sze Yan Liu, Jennifer J Manly, Benjamin D Capistrant and M Maria Glymour

PLOS ONE, 2015, vol. 10, issue 6, 1-13

Abstract: Introduction: Legally mandated segregation policies dictated significant differences in the educational experiences of black and white Americans through the first half of the 20th century, with markedly lower quality in schools attended by black children. We determined whether school term length, a common marker of school quality, was associated with blood pressure and hypertension among a cohort of older Americans who attended school during the de jure segregation era. Methods: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I and II data were linked to state level historical information on school term length. We used race and gender-stratified linear regression models adjusted for age, state and year of birth to estimate effects of term length on systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP) and hypertension for US-born adults. We also tested whether correcting years of schooling for term length differences attenuated estimated racial disparities. Results: Among black women, 10% longer school term was associated with lower SBP, DBP and hypertension prevalence (2.1 mmHg, 1.0 mmHg, and 5.0 percentage points respectively). Associations for whites and for black men were not statistically significant. Adjustment for education incorporating corrections for differences in school term length slightly attenuated estimated racial disparities. Conclusions: Longer school term length predicted better BP outcomes among black women, but not black men or whites.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0129673 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 29673&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0129673

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129673

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().