Psychosocial Resilience Linked to Heart Health in Black Adults

THURSDAY, Oct. 8, 2020 (HealthDay News) — For Black adults, individual psychosocial resilience is associated with improved cardiovascular health, measured using Life’s Simple 7 (LS7) scores, according to a study published online Oct. 7 in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

Jeong Hwan Kim, M.D., from the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, and colleagues assessed LS7 scores in 389 Black adults living in Atlanta. By assessing environmental mastery, purpose in life, optimism, resilient coping, and depressive symptoms, the researchers created a composite score of individual psychosocial resilience. Neighborhood-level cardiovascular resilience was determined separately by census tract-level rates of cardiovascular mortality/morbidity events.

The researchers found that after adjustment for sociodemographic factors, higher individual psychosocial resilience was significantly associated with higher LS7 scores (β = 0.38 per 1 standard deviation). There was also a significant association observed for higher neighborhood-level cardiovascular resilience with higher LS7 scores (β = 0.23 per 1 standard deviation). High individual psychosocial resilience, but not living in high-resilience neighborhoods, was independently associated with higher LS7 scores when examined jointly. The difference in LS7 scores was largest between those with high and low psychosocial resilience living in low-resilience neighborhoods (8.38 versus 7.42).

“Our findings highlight the importance of individual psychosocial factors that promote cardiovascular health among Black adults, traditionally considered to be a high-risk population,” the authors write.

Several authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

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