@article{d45f8aa500a24ba7ae6b446bab3b180a,
title = "Social network factors and cardiovascular health among baltimore public housing residents",
abstract = "Social networks – or the web of relationships between individuals – may influence cardiovascular disease risk, particularly in low-income urban communities that suffer from a high prevalence of cardiovascular disease. Our objective was to describe the social networks of public housing residents – a low-income urban population – in Baltimore, MD and the association between these networks and blood pressure. We used cross-sectional survey data of randomly selected heads of household in two public housing complexes in Baltimore, MD (8/2014–8/2015). Respondents answered questions about 10 social network members, including attributes of their relationship and the frequency of interaction between members. We calculated measures of network composition (e.g., proportion of network members who were family members) and network structure (e.g., density), which we then dichotomized as “high” (upper quartile) and “low” (less than upper quartile). We used linear regression to test the association between network measures and mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure. The sample included 259 respondents (response rate: 46.6%). Mean age was 44.4 years, 85.7% were women, 95.4% Black, and 56.0% had a history of hypertension. A high proportion of older children (age 8–17 years) in the network (>30%) was associated with a 4.0% (95%CI [0.07, 8.07], p = 0.047) higher mean systolic blood pressure (~4.9 mmHg greater). Other network attributes had no association with blood pressure. Social network attributes, such as having a high proportion of older children in one's network, may have particular relevance to blood pressure among low-income public housing residents, reinforcing the potential importance of social relationships to cardiovascular health.",
keywords = "African American, Hypertension, Minority health, Poverty, Public housing, Social networking",
author = "Meza, {Benjamin P.L.} and Meena Chatrathi and Pollack, {Craig E.} and Levine, {David M.} and Latkin, {Carl A.} and Clark, {Jeanne M.} and Cooper, {Lisa A.} and Yuan, {Christina T.} and Maruthur, {Nisa M.} and Gudzune, {Kimberly A.}",
note = "Funding Information: Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number K23HL116601. Dr. Meza was supported by a training grant through the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number T32HL007180. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The study was also supported by small grants from the Johns Hopkins Osler Center for Clinical Excellence and the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute. We would like to acknowledge technical support for the statistical analysis from the National Center for Research Resources and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health through Grant Number UL1TR001079. Funding Information: In particular, we would like to acknowledge the public housing communities that contributed knowledge and experience to the development and completion of this project. We would like to acknowledge support for the statistical analysis from the National Center for Research Resources and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences ( NCATS ) of the National Institutes of Health through Grant Number UL1TR001079. Funding Information: Warnes, G. R., Bolker, B., Lumley, T., from Randall C. Johnson are Copyright SAIC-Frederick, R. C. J. C., by the Intramural Research Program, I. F., of the NIH, Institute, N. C., & for Cancer Research under NCI Contract NO1-CO-12400., C. (2018). gmodels: Various R Programming Tools for Model Fitting. https://cran.r-project.org/package=gmodels. ",
year = "2020",
month = dec,
doi = "10.1016/j.pmedr.2020.101192",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "20",
journal = "Preventive Medicine Reports",
issn = "2211-3355",
publisher = "Elsevier BV",
}