• Authors: Noreen Goldman, Boriana Pratt, Daniel Notterman, Lisa Schneper (Princeton University); Norrina Bai Allen, Hongyan Ning (Northwestern University); Donald Lloyd-Jones (Boston University)
• Title: Racial and Ethnic Variation in Socioeconomic Differentials in Young Adult Cardiovascular Health
• Journal: American Journal of Epidemiology

This paper looks at whether the link between cardiovascular health and socioeconomic status markers, such as income or education, is weaker for Black and Hispanic young adults compared to white young adults.

If this is true, then programs that focus only on helping people get access to more education or higher income — without also dealing with stress from unfair treatment or tough living conditions — might have a smaller effect on cardiovascular health for Black and Hispanic youth than for their white counterparts, explained Noreen Goldman, a co-author and the Hughes-Rogers Professor of Demography and Public Affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

“In fact, for those who move up in status, the literature suggests that the extra stress they face in higher-status settings might even hurt their cardiovascular health,” Goldman said.

The way cardiovascular health is measured in this study has been shown to predict cardiovascular disease and other health problems later in life. So, these differences in cardiovascular health among young adults could lead to bigger health gaps as people get older.

The team's research found that having more education or financial resources is associated with a smaller improvement in cardiovascular health for Black and Hispanic young adults than for white young adults.

“This means that even when Black and Hispanic youth do well in school or have good jobs, they may not always see the same health benefits,” Goldman explained. “These results support the idea that unfair treatment or discrimination might be getting in the way of better cardiovascular health for these groups, even when they succeed in other areas.”

Researchers arrived at this conclusion by collecting novel survey data on cardiovascular health metrics of more than 1,400 young adults across the nation between 2021 and 2023.

They used a special scoring system with seven parts to assess cardiovascular health, based on guidelines from the American Heart Association, and looked at how this cardiovascular health score was related to six different measures of socioeconomic status at the individual, family, and neighborhood levels.

They also looked at how these relationships changed depending on a person’s race or ethnicity.

The findings suggest that just improving income or education might not be enough to boost cardiovascular health for everyone equally — especially if other challenges, such as discrimination or stress, are still present.

The study suggests that discrimination might be one reason why Black and Hispanic young adults don’t see the same health improvements from higher socioeconomic status as white young adults do.

“People who face racial or ethnic discrimination often have worse outcomes in many areas of life, including their health,” Goldman said. “This study builds on earlier research by asking whether unfair treatment based on race or ethnicity might explain why higher income or education may not lead to the same improvement in cardiovascular health for Black and Hispanic young adults.”