SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC INFLUENCES ON HISPANIC WHITE DIFFERENCES IN BLOOD-PRESSURE

DATA ARE PRESENTED for 933 Hispanic and 7087 white men and women, ages 25 to 74, who participated in biennial cross-sectional surveys in Cal ifornia from 1979 to 1990. Using an unadjusted analysis, white women a nd men had significantly higher mean systolic blood pressures (123.4 m mHg versus 119.6 mmHg) and higher levels of hypertension (29.0% versus 22.9%) than Hispanic women and men (P values greater than 0.001). To reduce bias from confounding, a subset of 702 Hispanics were matched t o 702 whites on age, gender, education, city of residence, and time of survey. All ethnic differences in blood pressure became nonsignifican t in this analysis. The mean systolic blood pressure for whites was 12 0.0 mmHg; for Hispanics, 120.7 mmHg (24.4% hypertension for both group s, P values greater than 0.10). These findings show the importance of taking sociodemographic factors into account when examining ethnic dif ferences in brood pressure.