Contributions of social determinants of health to systolic blood pressure in United States adult immigrants: Use of path analysis to validate a conceptual framework.

OBJECTIVE

Validate a conceptual framework and identify pathways between antecedent (life-course socioeconomic status (L-SES)), predisposing (age, sex, married, homeless as a child), enabling (health literacy, acculturation), and need (disability) social determinants of health (SDoH) and systolic blood pressure (SBP) in US immigrants.

METHODS

181 immigrants were enrolled in the study. Path analysis was used to identify paths by which SDoH influence SBP and to determine if antecedents, predisposing, enabling, and need factors have direct and indirect relationships with SBP.

RESULTS

The final model(chi(5)=14.88, p = 0.011, RMSEA = 0.070, pclose = 0.17, CFI = 0.96) showed L-SES was directly associated with age (0.12, p = 0.019) and disability(0.17, p = 0.001); and indirectly associated with disability (0.29, p < 0.001) and SBP (0.31, p < 0.001). Age (0.31, p < 0.001) and sex(0.25, p < 0.001) were directly associated with SBP, and age was directly associated with disability (0.29, p < 0.001) and indirectly associated with SBP(0.14, p = 0.018). Other predisposing factors such as being married (-0.32, p < 0.001) and being homeless as a child alone (0.16, p < 0.001) were directly associated with disability and indirectly associated (0.14, p = 0.018) with SBP. Enabling factor of health literacy (0.16, p = 0.001) was directly associated with disability and indirectly associated (0.14, p = 0.018) with SBP. Need factor of disability (0.14, p = 0.018) was directly associated with SBP.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides the first validation of a conceptual model for the relationship between SDoH and SBP among immigrants and identifies potential targets for focused interventions.