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Henry S. Kahn, MD
Emory University School of Medicine Atlanta, Ga

JAMA. 1991;265(22):2957.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Klag et al¹ have presented interesting data about the distribution of blood pressure in US blacks. However, their analysis may have failed to consider the striking effect that the city of residence had on their blood pressure observations. The mean blood pressure in Savannah, Ga, for example, was 10/6 mm Hg higher than it was in Pueblo, Colo (Klag et al, Table 2, p 600). By way of comparison, there is a somewhat smaller difference in mean blood pressures, only 5/5 mm Hg, between subjects at the highest and lowest quartiles of skin color (unadjusted data; Table).

Since the city of residence was associated both with skin color (the risk factor under examination) and with blood pressure (the outcome variable), it would have been appropriate for Klag et al to include the city of residence among the variables in their multivariate analysis. It is not clear . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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