Is Vigilance Something to Keep an Eye on? Understanding Ethnic Variance in Cardiovascular Disease Risk

Abstract

Social vigilance, the active behavior of scanning one’s environment for possible interpersonal challenges or threats, is associated with the activation of stress responses related to downstream disease outcomes, including cardiovascular disease (CVD). Hispanics/Latinxs (H/L) living in the U.S. navigate significant economic, psychosocial, and physical stressors that may influence their vigilant behavior including high rates of poverty, neighborhood segregation, interpersonal discrimination, and poor healthcare access. Despite greater stress exposure, H/L exhibit relatively better physical health and lower mortality compared to Non-Hispanic Whites (NHW), a phenomenon known as the Hispanic Health Paradox. The sociocultural hypothesis suggests that collectivistic values within H/L communities may buffer stress perception, reducing the need for social vigilance. Related to culturally driven differences in health, Anglo acculturation, which is an individual’s sense of inclusion within English-speaking sociocultural contexts, has been shown to be related to worsening health status among H/L. To address possible ethnic differences in stress-related pathways to better health outcomes among H/L, our study aimed to test whether H/L display less social vigilance than expected compared NHW, and to examine differences in stress experience among ethnic groups as a pathway through which stress exposure is associated with social vigilance. Additionally, we explored if these differences were moderated by social support and acculturation. The current study assessed a subsample of H/L (n=1,297) and NHW (n= 1,118) young adults from a larger cross-sectional psychosocial survey across the U.S. Results revealed that H/Ls reported lower social vigilance than NHW, with the differences primarily driven by Latina women in the sample. Stress experience mediated the relationship between stress exposure and social vigilance, suggesting that perceptions of stress influence the need for vigilance, though no differences were observed among racial/ethnic groups. Consistent with the sociocultural hypothesis, social support moderated this relationship for the H/L group. Additionally, Mexican orientation predicted lower stress experience, indicating that lower acculturation was associated with reduced social vigilance scores. Our findings supported our main hypothesis, consistent with the literature on stress appraisal processes and cultural stress-buffering effects of collectivism and the benefits of larger, tighter social networks.