Racial/ethnic differences in the associations between social support and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA)
Date
2025-01-16
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BMC Public Health
Abstract
Background
Despite the established link between social support and cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes, few studies have examined racial/ethnic variation in these associations. This study utilized data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) to investigate racial/ethnic differences in perceived social support and in the link between support and incident hard CVD events and mortality.
Method
Participants (N = 6,814) were 45–84 years of age who identified as White, Black, Hispanic/Latino, or Chinese without known clinical CVD at baseline (2000–2002). Racial/ethnic differences in perceived support (overall, emotional, informational, and instrumental) were tested using multiple regression with adjustments for demographic, socioeconomic, lifestyle/psychosocial, and clinical risk factors, and immigration history. Racial/ethnic differences in the association between perceived support and incident CVD events or mortality were tested using Cox proportional hazards models with progressive adjustments for the same covariates.
Results
At baseline, the mean age was 62.15 years (SD = 10.23); 38.5% identified as White, 27.8% as Black, 22.0% as Hispanic/Latino, and 11.8% as Chinese. Black and Hispanic/Latino participants reported higher levels of overall support, emotional support, and informational support than White participants (p’s < 0.05). Chinese participants reported less informational support (p = .010) than White participants. Higher informational support was associated with decreased risk for hard CVD events. This association did not differ by race/ethnic group.
Conclusion
Despite racial/ethnic differences in perceptions of support, perceived informational support was protective against CVD for participants of all racial/ethnic backgrounds.
Description
This article was originally published in BMC Public Health. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-21141-0.
© The Author(s) 2024.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords
social support, race, ethnicity, culture, cardiovascular morbidity, cardiovascular mortality
Citation
Naqvi, J.B., Formagini, T., Allison, M.A. et al. Racial/ethnic differences in the associations between social support and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). BMC Public Health 25, 192 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-21141-0