Black women at risk for heart disease report greater loneliness

Feb 22, 2017

African-American women who are at risk for heart disease are twice as likely to report that they are lonely when compared to their white counterparts, according to a new study that was part of a nursing symposium at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2017 released on Tuesday.

“African-American women at risk for cardiovascular disease have unique predictors of loneliness — financial stress and subjective social status — as compared to non-Hispanic white women,” said Karen Saban, R.N., Ph.D., who is an associate professor and associate dean for research at Loyola University Chicago Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing.

In addition to being surveyed about their loneliness and signs of depression, the women in this study were also surveyed about their financial stress and social support. Researchers found that African-American woman were three times as likely to report financial stress as their white counterparts.

What’s more, the women were surveyed on their perceived social status, or their own personal sense of where they stood on the social ladder, with African-American women being two and a half times more likely to report that they considered themselves to be lower on the social ladder than their white counterparts felt they were.