Social relationship resources are not associated with undiagnosed hypertension in a probability sample of older adults

Social relationships are associated with a number of desirable health outcomes but the mechanisms are less well understood. One hypothesis is that people with greater social relationship resources more effectively use health services. Undiagnosed hypertension provides an ecologically important indicator of this hypothesized mechanism. High blood pressure is a key modifiable determinant of cardiovascular disease and a large number of US adults with hypertension are unaware of their condition. If social relationships confer advantages in terms of health services utilization then there should be less undiagnosed hypertension among individuals with more social relationship resources. From a probability sample of US adults 60 and over (N=3705) we examined a subset (N=1349) who had elevated blood pressure (SBP >= 140 mmHg or DBP >= 90 mmHg) and were either aware (N=804) or unaware (N=545) of their condition, i.e., had been told by a physician that they had high blood pressure. Several social relationship measures (availability of emotional support, financial support, number of friends, and unmet support needs) were entered into a logistic regression predicting undiagnosed hypertension. After adjusting for sociodemographic and health care access variables, neither social support (odds ratio [OR]=1.17, 95% CI 0.88-1.56) nor the number of friends (odds ratio [OR]=0.98, 95% CI 0.88-1.10) were associated with undiagnosed hypertension. Male gender was associated with a greater likelihood of undiagnosed hypertension whereas non-Hispanic Black race was associated with lower risk. Social relationship resources were not associated with a hypertension diagnosis among an older adult sample with high blood pressure.