The prevalence of hypertension among elderly Navajos: A test of the acculturative stress hypothesis

Abstract

This is a study of the prevalence of hypertension among a sample of Navajo Indians 65 years of age and above. It is not clear whether prevalence has increased over the past generation in this age group. When men and women are compared, conventional measures of “acculturation” are related to hypertension among women but not among men. The differences between men and women seem most probably related to differences in the situation of men and women within both Navajo and Anglo-American society. Several alternative explanations are discussed as well. Department of Preventive, Family, and Rehabilitation Medicine, Univiersity of Rochester School of Medicine, Rochester, New York 14642. Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721.