Social support and health behavior in hostile black and white men and women in CARDIA

Objective: These cross-sectional analyses of the Coronary Artery Risk Devel opment in Young Adults (CARDIA) data were stimulated by previous CARDIA ana lyses that showed an adverse association between hostility and several heal th behaviors: physical activity, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, an d caloric intake, in both black and white men and women, such that the high er the hostility, the worse the health behavior profile. The current study investigated whether high social support was associated with better health behavior than low social support in individuals with high hostility scores. Methods: The subjects were 5115 healthy black and white men and women rang ing in age from 18 to 30 years. The hypothesis was that the association bet ween hostility and certain adverse health behaviors would be diminished in the presence of high social support. Race-gender specific median cutpoints of the Cook-Medley Hostility scale and an index of social support defined l evels of high and low hostility and social support. Results: After controll ing for age and body mass index (BMI), support was positively associated wi th more exercise in all groups except black women, but when coupled with hi gh hostility, this positive association between support and exercise remain ed only in men. White women with high support were less often smokers but t his association did not hold when examined only in the high-hostile group. Black men and white women with high support in the presence of high hostili ty consumed more alcohol, but the amount was moderate. Conclusions: We conc lude that social support in the presence of high hostility only sometimes r educes the association of hostility to adverse health behaviors and that th ese effects are complex. Additional research investigating types of social support on health behavior in different race-gender groups is advocated.