Health beliefs and the prevention of hypertension in a black population living in London.

In the United Kingdom, the morbidity and mortality associated with hypertension is much higher in Blacks than in Whites. We studied a convenience sample of 312 persons aged 25-79 years from 17 predominantly Black Seventh-Day Adventist churches across London by using the health belief model to examine their beliefs about the prevention of hypertension. A questionnaire was used to collect demographic and anthropometric data, lifestyle practices, and perceptions toward hypertension by using the health belief model constructs of susceptibility, severity, benefits, barriers, and self-efficacy. A relative risk estimate score was developed to assess the presence of several risk factors of hypertension for each participant. Based on multiple regression analyses, the demographic variables were independent predictors of systolic blood pressure (R2 = .195), the combined behavioral variable (risk score) was an independent predictor of diastolic blood pressure (beta = .18, P = .02), and self-efficacy was the only independent variable significantly associated with risk scores (beta = -.21, P = .008). The perception of self-efficacy to perform behaviors that will decrease hypertension risk needs to be effectively harnessed by health educators to decrease the prevalence of hypertension in this population.