Anxiety Symptomatology and Perceived Health in African American Adults: Moderating Role of Emotion Regulation

Although emotional health has been theoretically and empirically linked to physical health, the anxiety-physical health association in particular is not well understood for African American adults. This study examined anxiety as a specific correlate of perceived health in addition to testing the potential moderating role of emotion regulation, an index of how and when individuals modulate emotions, in the association for anxiety to perceived health. Study participants were 151 community-based African American adults who completed measures of anxiety symptomatology and emotion regulation in addition to responding to a self-report question of perceived health. Results showed that higher levels of anxiety symptomatology were associated with poorer health ratings for those who reported more limited access to emotion regulation strategies but not those who reported having more emotion regulation strategies. The findings suggest that anxiety-related distress and health problems may be interrelated when emotion regulation strategies are limited.