The Continuing Puzzle of Hypertension Among African Americans: Developmental Origins and the Mid-century Socioeconomic Transformation

Garrett T. Senney () and Richard H. Steckel ()
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Garrett T. Senney: Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
Richard H. Steckel: Ohio State University

Chapter Chapter 2 in Standard of Living, 2022, pp 19-41 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract African Americans have an excessive prevalence of hypertension relative to whites, particularly in the South. We seek to understand this puzzle by applying the developmental origins hypothesis to the rapid socioeconomic improvement that occurred after World War II. The long experience of pre-World War II poverty prepared African Americans born around the 1950s for survival in a lean world of poor nutrition and hard work, but created vulnerabilities for chronic diseases when conditions improved later in life. We analyze individual-level evidence from the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System with household income data, finding results consistent with the developmental origins hypothesis, that accelerated income growth from poverty strongly indicates an increased prevalence of hypertension. This strongly suggests that the collection of individual-level, intergenerational data is necessary to further evaluate this puzzle.

Keywords: Developmental origins; Hypertension; Health; Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System; Cardiovascular disease (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-06477-7_2

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