Investigation of relationship between psychosocial profile and cardiovascular health among African Americans Open Access

Abstract

Background: Neighborhood and psychosocial health has known association with cardiovascular health and African Americans have been identified as a population with high risk for cardiovascular disease. Previous studies have shown that cardiovascular health is affected by factors such as depression and neighborhood conditions among different populations. However, a thorough study that considers multiple dimensions of neighborhood perceptions and psychosocial health in the African American population has not been conducted.

 

Methods: We examined a sample of 502 African Americans in the metropolitan area from the Morehouse Emory Center for Health Equity (MECA) Study. We first identified clusters of samples based on their neighborhood perception and psychosocial profile using four unsupervised clustering methods. We then compared differences in arterial stiffness (measured by pulse wave velocity and augmentation index) among clusters to investigate underlying relationships between psychosocial well-being and their vascular function, as a measure of subclinical cardiovascular disease. We also used four supervised machine learning methods to identify the most significant factors affecting arterial stiffness.

 

Results: Clustering analysis results show that subjects who are psychosocially healthier have better cardiovascular health, indicated by lower augmentation index. However, pulse wave velocity is not associated with psychosocial profile. Additionally, different arterial stiffness measures are mainly associated with slightly different psychosocial factors.

 

Conclusion: Neighborhood perceptions and psychosocial profile are associated with arterial stiffness, measured by augmentation index among African Americans. Factors such as optimism and environmental mastery play a major role in affecting subclinical cardiovascular health. 

Table of Contents

Table of Contents 

Introduction..........................................................................................................................1 

Methods................................................................................................................................3 

Results..................................................................................................................................9

Discussion............................................................................................................................11 

References..........................................................................................................................25

Tables and Figures 

 

Tables.................................................................................................................................14

Figures................................................................................................................................20

About this Master's Thesis

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School	Rollins School of Public Health
Department	Biostatistics
Subfield / Discipline	Biostatistics - MPH & MSPH
Degree	M.S.P.H.
Submission	Master's Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Statistics Psychology, Social
Keyword	Machine Learning African Americans Clustering Analysis
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Yi-An Ko , Emory University
Committee Members	Mary Kelley , Emory University

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