Social support and arterial pressure in a central Mexican community

Research on the relationship of social support and arterial blood pressure was conducted in a town in central Mexico. A culturally appropriate measure of social support was developed assessing perceived support from relatives, friends, neighbors, and compadres (ritual kin). The effects of perceived support from these four sources were compared to the effects of the amount of reported social contacts. For males, more support from all four sources was related to lower arterial pressure, whereas amount of social contact was related to higher diastolic blood pressure; support from compadres had the largest inverse correlation with blood pressure. For females the pattern of correlations was dependent on age: support from relatives and friends was related to higher blood pressure for younger females, whereas support from relatives was related to lower blood pressure for older females. This pattern of relationships is consistent with the place of women in the social structure of this Mexican community, and these results point to the need to conceptualize and measure social support in culturally appropriate ways.