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Socioeconomic status, John Henryism and blood pressure among African-Americans in the Jackson Heart Study
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Socioeconomic status, John Henryism and blood pressure among African-Americans in the Jackson Heart Study

Malavika A Subramanyam, Sherman A James, Ana V Diez-Roux, DeMarc A Hickson, Daniel Sarpong, Mario Sims, Herman A Taylor, Jr and Sharon B Wyatt
Social science & medicine (1982), v 93, pp 139-146
Sep 2013
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.06.016
PMID: 23906131
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://europepmc.org/articles/pmc4149751View
Accepted (AM)Open Access (License Unspecified),  Open

Abstract

Adaptation, Psychological Adult African Americans - psychology African Americans - statistics & numerical data Aged Aged, 80 and over Cohort Studies Female Health Status Disparities Humans Hypertension - ethnology Hypertension - psychology Male Middle Aged Mississippi Psychological Theory Sex Distribution Social Class Stress, Psychological - ethnology Stress, Psychological - psychology Young Adult
John Henryism connotes a strong behavioral predisposition to engage in effortful, active coping with difficult social and economic stressors. This behavioral predisposition is measured by the 12 item John Henryism Scale for Active Coping (JHAC). The John Henry hypothesis predicts that the well-known inverse socioeconomic status (SES)-blood pressure association will be stronger among persons who score high rather than low on the JHAC. We tested this hypothesis in a large African American cohort using baseline data from the Jackson Heart Study. Unlike previous studies, we used multiple indicators of SES: income, education, occupation, childhood SES and cumulative SES. Because the hypothesis is most relevant for adults still in the labor force, we excluded retired participants, yielding a sample size of 3978. Gender-specific Poisson regression models for hypertension adjusting for age, John Henryism, SES, and a John Henryism-SES interaction term, were fit to examine associations. Separate models were fit for each SES indicator. We found some evidence that John Henryism modified the association between income and hypertension in men: low income was associated with higher prevalence of hypertension in men who scored high on John Henryism (prevalence ratio (PR) for low vs. high income tertile 1.12), but with lower hypertension prevalence among men who scored low on John Henryism (PR 0.85, one sided P value for multiplicative interaction <0.05). For women, the association of low income with higher hypertension prevalence was stronger at lower than higher levels of John Henryism (PR 1.27 and 1.06 at low and high levels of John Henryism respectively, P value<0.05). There was no evidence that John Henryism modified the associations of hypertension with other SES indicators in men or women. The modest support of the John Henryism Hypothesis in men only, adds to the literature on this subject, but underscores questions regarding the gender, spatial, socioeconomic and historical contexts in which the hypothesis is valid.

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70 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#10 Reduced Inequalities
#3 Good Health and Well-Being

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
International collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Social Sciences, Biomedical
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