Clinical InvestigationCoronary Artery DiseaseThe relationship between perceived discrimination and coronary artery obstruction
Section snippets
Study population
We used data from the Cardiac Decision Making Study, an observational cohort study of white and black veterans who had a cardiac nuclear imaging study performed between August 1999 and January 2001 at 1 of 5 Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Centers with on-site catheterization laboratories.16 Overall, 2,335 of the 5,278 patients who were screened had a positive nuclear imaging study. Of these, 981 patients were excluded because they were unable to be contacted (n = 456), had a
Descriptive statistics
Characteristics of the full sample are presented in Table I. Compared with blacks, whites were significantly older and less likely to be diagnosed with hypertension but were more likely to have had prior revascularization or prior myocardial infarction. Whites reported significantly less discrimination, negative affect, and religiosity, but significantly more social support than blacks. There were no race differences in education, optimism, and diabetes. Overall, 43.9% of participants were at
Discussion
In this study of black and white male veterans with abnormal nuclear imaging studies, we found that, among black men, greater perceptions of racial discrimination were related to increased risk for severe coronary obstruction and to angiographic coronary obstruction after controlling for clinical and psychosocial factors that are related to cardiovascular health. In addition, smoking, prior myocardial infarction, and optimism were related to nuclear imaging study results and coronary
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