Regular Article
Family conflict predicts blood pressure changes in African-American adolescents: a preliminary examination

https://doi.org/10.1006/jado.2000.0320Get rights and content

Abstract

Reviews of the youth literature suggest that the precursors of elevated blood pressure begin in childhood. As such, it may be possible to identify processes among African-American adolescents that are associated with blood pressure changes. This study examined the relationship between family conflict and mean arterial pressure changes in a sample of 39 African-American adolescents. Resting mean arterial pressure, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure were assessed at Time 1 and Time 2, separated by a period of 6 months. Assessments of perceived family conflict and negative life events were taken at Time 1. Findings from the multiple regression analyses indicated that family conflict predicted mean arterial blood pressure changes, independent of the effects of age, gender, and body mass index. Although preliminary, these findings highlight the importance of exploring environmental processes that may influence physiological outcomes in adolescents.

References (17)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (12)

  • Childhood adversity and cardiometabolic biomarkers in mid-adulthood in the 1958 British birth cohort

    2022, SSM - Population Health
    Citation Excerpt :

    Limited prior research has examined associations between family conflict and blood pressure in adulthood. However, a small-scale study of 39 African-American adolescents found that greater perceived family conflict predicted greater arterial blood pressure changes in adolescence (Clark & Armstead, 2000). Furthermore, a study of 122 female adolescents showed that negative social interactions were associated with a trajectory of increasing resting blood pressure over a two-year period (Ross et al., 2011).

  • Childhood socioeconomic hardship, family conflict, and young adult hypertension: The Santiago Longitudinal Study

    2020, Social Science and Medicine
    Citation Excerpt :

    Financial strain and economic insecurity are strongly associated with family tension and conflict (Kavanaugh et al., 2018; Neppl et al., 2016). Stressful family relations, as well as conflictual parent-child relations, have been linked directly with children's high blood pressure and pre-hypertension (Clark and Armstead, 2000; Mak et al., 2019; Su et al., 2015). Family tensions derived from economic insecurity also relate to elevated levels of inflammation (Schreier et al., 2014), cortisol (Brown et al., 2019), and other neuroendocrine stress hormones in children (Brody et al., 2013; Taylor, 2010) – all of which can contribute to high blood pressure (Pickering, 2007).

  • Considering the role of stress in populations of high-risk, underserved community networks program centers

    2015, Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action
View all citing articles on Scopus
f1

Reprint requests and correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Rodney Clark, Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, 71 West Warren, Detroit, MI 48202 (E-mail: [email protected]).

View full text