Why do some African Americans have high blood pressure? It could be where they live.

Dr. Frank Perry isn’t surprised that a new study links racially segregated neighborhoods and high blood pressure for African-Americans.

The study of 2,280 black adults over 25 years found a small but significant rise in blood pressure for those living in racially segregated neighborhoods. Blood pressure decreased for those who moved to less segregated neighborhoods.

“I think anything that reduces segregation is helpful,” said Perry, an associate professor of internal medicine at Meharry Medical College and physician in Nashville.

The pressure of segregation

Stress, quality of schools, housing values and physical access to health-promoting resources such as drugstores, full-service grocery stores and gyms may be contributing to a rise in blood pressure in segregated neighborhoods, researchers determined.

The findings of the National Institutes of Health-funded study, published in the May issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, “suggest that social policies that minimize segregation, such as the opening of housing markets, may have meaningful health benefits, including the reduction of blood pressure.”

Other studies have pointed to segregation and inequality as factors in conditions ranging from high blood pressure and stroke and diabetes to cancer.

Prescribing health care

Perry added racial inequities in health care therapy and treatment guidelines to the factors. For solutions, he said universal health care would be helpful.

“I think 40 percent or 50 percent of people who are diabetics don’t know they are, can’t afford health care or are tragically under-insured, so they don’t go to the doctor until it is severe,” he said. “Then they want miracles..."

The segregated North

While still high, racial segregation of black and white residents in the nation’s 52 largest metropolitan areas has modestly declined in recent years, a Brookings analysis found.

The highest levels of neighborhood segregation were not in the South.

With 100 as the highest possible level of segregation, at 62 Memphis tied with the San Francisco, Washington and Houston metro areas. Nashville’s segregation level was lower, at 55, one point behind the Minneapolis and one point ahead of the Charlotte metro areas.

Milwaukee was the most segregated metro area, at 81, followed by New York, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo and St. Louis. They were followed by the Los Angeles, Cincinnati and Philadelphia areas, which all had a segregation level of 68.

Las Vegas, with a level of 40, was the least segregated metro area.

“Despite continued high levels, declines in black segregation suggest that broader demographic forces at work on the part of new generations of blacks, whites, and other growing minorities hold the potential, if partnered with appropriate social and economic actions, to mitigate the pronounced levels of segregation that characterized the country for much of its history,” wrote William Frey, the author of the analysis.\