William J. Schull

Socioecological stressor areas and black-white blood pressure: Detroit

Abstract 1. 1. Blood pressure does appear to vary with ‘socioecological niches’ or combinations of sex, race and residence, which reflect social class position as well as degree of social stressor conditions. Black High Stress males had higher adjusted levels than Black Low Stress males, while White High Stress females had higher adjusted pressures than White Low Stress females. Black High Stress females had significantly higher observed levels than Black Low Stress females. 2. 2. Black High Stress males had a significantly higher per cent of Borderline and Hypertensive blood pressure than other male race-area groups; White Low Stress females had the lowest of all eight sex-race-stress area groups. 3. 3. For Black males, the younger, overweight High Stress residents had significantly higher Borderline and Hypertensive levels than did a similar Black Low Stress subgroup. Further, for both groups, being raised in Detroit and not migrating from elsewhere was related to higher readings. Tests for age-stress area interaction, however, were not significant.

The effect of parental consanguinity and inbreeding in Hirado, Japan

SummaryA census of Hirado, Japan in the summer of 1964 produced data on the reproductive performances of husbands and wives for 10,530 marriages where either the husband, the wife, or both were alive and residing in the city at the time of the census. Approximately one in every 6 of these marriages involves spouses who are biologically related to one another, and in some 10 per cent of marriages the husband, wife, or both are inbred. Analysis of the effects of length of cohabitation, socio-economic status, and consanguinity and inbreeding on total pregnancies, total livebirths, and “net fertility” (total livebirths minus non-accidental deaths in the first 21 years of life) revealed the following insofar as marriages contracted in the years 1920–1939 are concerned:1.Total pregnancies and total livebirths were significantly increased with consanguinity, but “net fertility” was not when allowance is made for the role of socio-economic factors, and religious affiliation is ignored. The latter finding is thought to reflect the increased risk of death to liveborn children born to consanguineous marriages. Among Buddhists, the only religious group large enough to warrant separate analysis, total pregnancies, total livebirths and “net fertility” are all significantly and positively associated with parental relationship. However, the regression coefficient associated with “net fertility” is less than half the value associated with either total pregnancies or total livebirths.2.Among non-farm marriages, all three measures of reproductivity were increased significantly with paternal inbreeding when religious affiliation is ignored or restricted to Buddhists. Among farm marriages, these measures were decreased but not always significantly so. Tests of the significance of the differences between farm and non-farm groups were almost invariably significant. No simple explanation other than chance can be advanced for this finding.3.total pregnancies and total livebirths, but not “net fertility” increase significantly with maternal inbreeding among non-farm marriages; within farm marriages these three metrics also increase, but significantly so only in the case of total livebirths. It is suggested that on Hirado the increased reproductivity of the consanguineous marriage largely offsets the increased mortality among the issue from such unions, and thereby dampens the rate of elimination of deleterious genes and the loss of genetic variability.

Radiation and the Sex Ratio in Man Sex ratio among children of survivors of atomic bombings suggests induced sex-linked lethal mutations.

An analysis of new data concerning the sex of children born to the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, together with a reanalysis of the data previously presented by Neel and Schull (9), reveals significant changes in the sex ratio of these children, changes in the direction to be expected if exposure had resulted in the induction of sex-linked lethal mutations (16).

A family set method for estimating heredity and stress. I. A pilot survey of blood pressure among Negroes in high and low stress areas, Detroit, 1966-1967.

A pilot survey designed to test the feasibility of measuring genetic and stress variables as they relate to blood pressure levels was carried out among Negroes residing in high and low stress census tracts in Detroit, 1966–1967. Fifty-six “family sets” or 280 persons were interviewed and blood pressure recordings were taken by trained nurses. Each family set was composed of an index, a spouse, a sibling and a first cousin of index, and an unrelated person in the census tract matched to index. The method and findings of obtaining such family sets is discussed and found to be encouraging enough to initiate a larger study. It was also found that proportions of persons with hypertensive levels were significantly greater in the high stress tract (32 per cent; N = 102) than in the low stress tract (19 per cent; N = 113).

THE INTRAFAMILIAL TRANSMISSION OF RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS-I DESIGN OF THE STUDY

Abstract A sampling of 49 family clusters consisting of a key person with arthritis, his spouse, a sibling and the siblings spouse, 2 cousins and an unrelated individual have been interviewed 3 times with regard to their arthritis and a variety of social and psychological factors. The sample has been drawn in part from a national random sample and in part from an arthritis clinic. The two subsamples have been found sufficiently homogeneous for combination and some of the strengths and limitations of the design have been discussed.

Heredity, stress and blood pressure, a family set method--I. Study aims and sample flow.

Abstract This first article, in a series of five, describes the method of sampling family sets. Family sets are composed of three persons having a genetic relation: an index, his/her sibling and first cousin, and two persons having an environmental nexus, a spouse of index and an unrelated person matched to the index. The target populations were four census areas in Detroit, a black high stress area, a black low stress area, a white high stress, and a white low stress area. These areas were selected by a factor analysis of census rates which indicated extremes of Stressor conditions. Within each area a complete census was taken, potential sample members were selected and verified by another interviewer, then assigned as an index; sibs and first cousins, selected as closest in age to index, were verified independently, then an unrelated person was chosen, and all five persons were independently interviewed and blood pressures taken. This article details the full sampling process in each of the four census areas, and tests the final sample of 461 family sets in several ways which confirmed expectations.

The intrafamilial transmission of rheumatoid arthritis—III: The lack of support for a genetic hypothesis

Abstract This report does not support a conclusion that heredity is an important feature of the etiology of rheumatoid arthritis. Errors that might have contributed to earlier conclusions have been discussed.THE PURPOSE of this report is to describe how persons having rheumatoid arthritis differ from unaffected controls in their recall of early parent+hild relations. The hypotheses examined in this study were mainly derived from research presented in several major reviews [l-3], as well as from case reports [4-61. Cross-reference to research articles shows that findings specifically describing parent-child relations among rheumatoid arthritics seem restricted to a few, often cited studies. See Table 1 for a summary. These reports vary in many ways, such as the precision of the methods used or the age and sex composition of the study sample. Earlier reports tend to be based on clinical interviews of selected patients, mostly women, with no control groups [7-91. More recent studies aim toward more explicitness in theory and precision in design [14-161. All studies agree, however, in assuming the importance of studying the general hypothesis that the presence of rheumatoid arthritis in adults may be related to early punitive parent treatment inducing chronic resentment and inhibited anger, which later may act to promote, precipitate, or exacerbate the disease. This idea, of course, can be best tested with longitudinal designs; however, the majority of studies, including the present one, rely on testing for differences in recalled parent treatment as reported by adults with and without the disease. It might be noted in passing that this general hypothesis does not call for observations of relations between arthritic children and their mothers [ll], where the childhood disease as well as the relationship of the mother with the sick child are probably different phenomena. Our review of the literature in this area further indicates that most inquiries are focused on females and on their mothers [6, 14-161 and are often associated with reports of personality differences. These personality differences suggest that rheumatoid arthritics are inhibited in their expression of feelings, have difficulty with interpersonal relations, and are angry, but express aggression ineptly and rarely [I, 15-191. While most of such literature is expressed in psychoanalytic terms, the viewpoint of this study is explicitly a social-psychological one. Our central hypothesis is that adults with rheumatoid arthritis will with excessive frequency recall (1) their parents’ authority as being ‘arbitrary’, and (2) their childhood response to such parent treatment as being ‘resentment’.

Differential Fertility and Human Evolution

Human biological evolution, like evolution in any other species, is ultimately dependent on two phenomena, namely, changes in the gene pool of the species due to genetically based differences in the survival of individuals, and changes due to genetically based differences in reproductive performance. The higher the early mortality rates in a population, and the greater the spread in number of children reared to maturity by those reaching maturity, then the greater the rate at which genetic change can occur, given that there is some genetic basis for either of these phenomena. The truism was more elegantly and more mathematically stated by Fisher (1930) as follows: “The rate of increase in fitness of any organism at any time is equal to its genetic variance in fitness at that time.” This Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection, as he termed it, measures fitness in terms of reproductive value, that is, as the intrinsic rate of increase associated with a given genotype. This intrinsic rate of increase he has called the Malthusian parameter.

A family set method for estimating heredity and stress—II: Preliminary results of the genetic methodology in a pilot survey of Negro blood pressure, Detroit, 1966–1967

Abstract A prior article described in detail a pilot survey designed to measure the effects of heredity and stress on blood pressures among Negroes residing in high and low stress census tracts in Detroit. This report outlines the construction of a genetic variable to analyze the heritable component in blood pressure variability using a family set composed of an index and spouse, a sibling and a first cousin of index, and an unrelated person in the tract matched to index. Given the theoretical proportions describing the degree to which genes are shared between siblings and first cousins, then it follows that variability of a given trait will increase predictably within each family set. Findings from a limited sample of 56 family sets indicate support for a genetic distance scale when measured against variables such as height and skin color; however, the relationship with blood pressure levels is inconclusive. A study now underway will more critically test the tentative findings from this pilot survey.

Heredity, stress and blood pressure, a family set method—II: Results of blood pressure measurement☆

This second article, in a series of five, reports the blood pressure of the family set sample, excluding spouse of index. N = 1844 persons or 461 family sets. The blood pressures of members of these sets were tested for known eorrelates, specifically, sex. race. age and present overweight. Statistically significant relations were obtained between elevated pressure, both systolic and diastolic, and sex, race, age and per cent overweight. Age and per cent overweight appear as the most consistent predictors of blood pressure variance across sex-race groups among all continuous variables studied. In this sample, there was a higher per cent of diastolic hypertensive pressures than systolic in at1 race-sex groups. These findings are important in establishing ~onforl~ity of results with other studies. but more pertinent, the analyses describe certain critical influences on blood pressure which can be adjusted for or taken into account in estimating the influence of a genetic factor on blood pressure.