Perceived Neighborhood and Cardiovascular Disease Risk

Growing up in disadvantaged neighborhoods is associated with poor adult health indicators, such as elevated C-reactive proteins (CRP) and Body Mass Index (BMI).In addition, perceptions of the neighborhood are often related to residents' cardiovascular disease (CVD).Gender and race are also significantly associated with CVD risk.It is necessary to find out how these factors affect CVD risk, as finding the extent to which gender and race affect CVD risk increases the correlation between poor health indicators and disadvantaged neighborhoods.Previous studies have focused on the immediate environment, such as parenting and school environment.However, environmental contexts such as neighborhood disadvantage and neighborhood disorder have not often been considered contributing factors for elevating cardiovascular disease risk.To address this issue, a nationally representative sample (n=11,371) of the United States was used to examine gender and racial differences in the cardiovascular disease risk indicators in young adulthood.This study also analyzes the effects of perceived neighborhood disorder and neighborhood disadvantage in earlier life on the risk of heart disease in young adulthood.Findings show that gender differences resulted in significantly different CRP levels, and racial differences resulted in significantly different BMI.Interestingly, lower perceived neighborhood disorder is significantly related to greater CRP levels and BMI, whereas neighborhood disadvantage was not associated with cardiovascular disease risks.With these new findings, it is important to protect the groups that are more likely to be affected by CVD risk.By providing extra resources, like screenings and support groups, targeted groups will be less affected by this disease.This research aims to bridge the gap in understanding how external social factors and biological predispositions affect heart disease risk.