It is well know from previous studies that stress produces negative health consequences. But a new study led by Shervin Assari, a researcher at the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health in the department of psychiatry at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, finds that stress may be more harmful to the health of Whites than it is to the health of Blacks.
The new study followed 1,600 adults over a 10-year period, measuring their levels of anger and how they dealt with that anger. Researchers then examined the death rates of these individuals. The results showed that Whites with a propensity toward anger were 40 percent more likely than Blacks with the same degree of anger to develop cardiovascular problems that led to death.
Dr. Assari states that the results “suggest Whites are more vulnerable to the bad effects of hostility and anger on cardiovascular system. On the contrary, Blacks may have developed a type of resilience to a wide range of psychosocial risk factors including but not limited to hostility and anger.”
The study, “Hostility, Anger, and Cardiovascular Mortality Among Blacks and Whites,” has been published on the website of the journal Research in Cardiovascular Medicine. It may be accessed here.
