Katherine Warren

Job Strain and Health Behaviors: Results of a Prospective Study

Purpose. To assess the association between job demands, job decision latitude, and job strain (defined by Karasek as a combination of high demands and low decision latitude) and cardiovascular disease-related health behaviors such as cigarette smoking, alcohol use, lack of exercise, and overweight. Design. Cross-sectional and prospective. Setting. Nine New York City public and private sector worksites. Subjects. Two hundred eighty-five male employees, aged 30 to 60, in a wide variety of white-collar and blue-collar job titles. Measures. Medical examinations and surveys, which included demographic, health behavior, and job characteristics data. Results. Prospectively, among 189 men, increase in job decision latitude over 3 years was associated with decrease in cigarette smoking, by analysis of covariance, controlling for age, race, education, marital status, and number of children at home (F (8, 180) = 4.37, p = .005). The largest increase in latitude occurred among the 13 men who quit smoking. However, change in job characteristics was not associated with change in overweight or alcohol use. Cross-sectional analyses did not produce consistent associations. Conclusions. The effectiveness of smoking cessation may be aided by modification of structural features of the work environment, such as job decision latitude. This study is limited by the small number of subjects who were engaged in high risk behaviors.

Hot flashes are associated with increased ambulatory systolic blood pressure.

Objective: To determine the association between ambulatory blood pressure (BP) and hot flash experience. Design: The participants in the study were 154 women (mean age = 46 years, range = 18-65 years), who were evaluated as part of a cross-sectional study on ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and diurnal BP patterns. Participants could be either normotensive or mildly hypertensive. Participants wore an ambulatory BP monitor for 24 hours and recorded their awake and sleep times. Hot flashes were assessed using an everyday complaint questionnaire that embeds symptoms associated with menopause into a list of everyday complaints. Results: Thirty-three percent of participants reported having had hot flashes during the 2 weeks before they completed the questionnaire. Compared with women who did not report hot flashes, mean awake and sleep systolic BP values were significantly higher (P < 0.004 and P = 0.007, respectively) in women who reported having had hot flashes. Hot flashes continued to independently predict average awake and sleep systolic BP (both P = 0.03) after controlling for age, race/ethnicity, body mass index, and menopausal status. Hot flashes were not associated with diastolic BP or nocturnal dipping of BP. Conclusions: Hot flashes are associated with increased awake and sleep systolic BP independent of menopausal status. Further investigation is warranted to elucidate the mechanisms by which hot flashes are associated with BP.

The effect of work environments on blood pressure : evidence from seven New York organizations

The prevalence of hypertension defined according to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey II (NHANES II) criteria (140/90 mmHg and/or taking antihypertensive medication) was analyzed cross-sectionally at seven worksites in New York City (n = 4274; 2616 men and 1648 women), in order to assess whether exposure to different work environments and occupations contributes to blood pressure variation. The prevalence of hypertension across worksites was 26% among men and 12% among women. Blood pressure was significantly different across worksites even after controlling for known risk factors using analysis of covariance. Of the variation in systolic pressure, 34% was predicted significantly by eight variables; after adjusting for upper-arm circumference, age and body mass index, higher pressures were associated with worksite differences (9.0 mmHg), being male (7.2 mmHg), lacking a high-school education (4.3 mmHg), having a clerical occupation (2.9 mmHg) and being unmarried (1.8 mmHg). Similar results for diastolic pressure suggest that researchers should consider worksite and job characteristics as important predictors of blood pressure differences in working populations.

A Comparison of Morning Blood Pressure Surge in African Americans and Whites

African Americans have twice the risk of suffering a stroke compared to whites, but the reasons for this disparity have yet to be elucidated. Recent data suggest that the morning blood pressure (BP) surge is an independent predictor of strokes. Whether African Americans and whites differ with respect to morning BP surge is unknown. African‐American (n=183) and white (n=139) participants, age 18‐65, were studied with 24‐hour ambulatory BP monitoring. Morning surge was defined as morning BP minus the trough BP during sleep. The morning surge was significantly lower in African Americans than in whites (23 mm Hg vs. 27 mm Hg; both SEM=1.0; p=0.009). This relationship was no longer evident after adjusting for gender, age, and body mass index (23 mm Hg vs. 26 mm Hg; SE=1.0 and 1.1; p=nonsignificant). Morning BP surge is unlikely to account for differences in stroke incidence between African Americans and whites.

Association of urinary albumin concentration with casual and ambulatory blood pressure: a similar relationship in normotensive and hypertensive subjects.

BackgroundThe urinary albumin level has been found to be positively correlated with blood pressure in hypertensive patients. To our knowledge, this relationship has not been evaluated in normotensive subjects and compared with that in hypertensives using casual and ambulatory blood pressure measurements. MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, a cohort of 234 normotensive and hypertensive participants wore an ambulatory blood pressure monitor for 24 h, standardized casual blood pressure measurements being taken. The urinary albumin concentration was determined by the dipstick Micral Test. The bivariate and multivariate relationship between urinary albumin concentration and demographic and blood pressure measures was investigated using correlational and regression analyses. ResultsThe prevalence of microalbuminuria was significantly greater in the hypertensive than normotensive participants. The urinary albumin concentration was positively associated with both casual and ambulatory measures of blood pressure in both the normotensive and hypertensive subsamples, stronger correlations being found for systolic blood pressure. The relationship between systolic blood pressure and urinary albumin concentration was similar in the normotensive and hypertensive subsamples. ConclusionsThese findings confirm earlier reports of the greater prevalence of microalbuminuria in patients with hypertension than in normotensive participants, as well as those reporting a continuous relationship in hypertensive participants. This study extends prior research to a normotensive subsample, in whom a similar relationship of blood pressure to microalbuminuria, using both ambulatory and casual measures of blood pressure, was found. Future research should investigate the causal direction of this relationship.