Demographic, social and stress correlates of hypertension among the urban poor

The relationship of demographic, social, and psychological variables to the diagnosis of hypertension in a population of urban, poor, predominantly black out-patients is reported. Subjects were 182 patients presenting for health care at Wayne State University Family Practice Clinic. Age, race, marital status, attendance at religious services, education, employment status, income, source of income and interpersonal stress were significantly related to a diagnosis of hypertension in this sample. Of those characteristics found to be significantly related to hypertension, discriminative analysis showed that age, race, education and frequency of church attendance were most important in predicting a diagnosis of hypertension among this out-patient sample of the urban poor. Implications for clinical care and for future research needs are considered.