Crime in South Africa impacts on blood pressure in adolescents, a Wits University study has found.
High adolescent blood pressure could in turn lead to a stroke or cardiovascular diseases in adulthood, according to the research, entitled Birth to Twenty, nicknamed Mandela’s Children.
It was the largest and longest-running study of child and adolescent health and development in Africa.
Crime, sanitation and household assets had an impact on systolic blood pressure of South African adolescents, Wits Professor John Pettifor, one of the researchers, said in a statement.
Blood pressure usually consists of two figures, systolic (the maximum figure) and diastolic (the minimum). Systolic pressure is measured when blood is forced against the walls of veins and arteries when the heart contracts, diastolic pressure when the heart relaxes.
Pettifor said crime levels could make healthy lifestyle behaviours, like physical activity, more difficult, which could have negative effects for blood pressure.
Another researcher, Dr Paula Griffiths, said: ”We examined a wide range of factors, including economic aspects, social aspects and the school environment.
”The only community factor to show associations with systolic blood pressure were measures related to crime.
”Adolescents with high blood pressure were likely to be at higher risk for high blood pressure as adults and this, in turn, puts them at risk of stroke and cardiovascular diseases,” she explained.
The study found adolescents in poorer households were more at risk of high blood pressure than those in wealthier communities. This showed the environment babies were born in had long-term health implications.
Pettifor said the ”bottom line” was that targeting crime reduction, helping communities feel protected from crime, ensuring good indoor sanitation facilities and improving household wealth could improve the health of adolescents.
In 1990 3 273 children from Johannesburg were enrolled in the Birth to Twenty programme, to be followed and interviewed over 20 years. — Sapa