More than 65 percent of black men over age 40 who have not been diagnosed with heart disease are at high risk of having their first heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years.
According to a study published online in June in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, there was a 22 percent increase in high risk for cardiovascular events — such as heart attacks, strokes or chest pain — among black men over 40 between 1999 and 2014.
Current recommendations by the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association define those at “high risk” as people who have a 7.5 percent or greater chance of having their first cardiovascular event in the next 10 years. Although rates among black men increased significantly, researchers did not find a significant change in rates among the study sample overall, which included white, black and Hispanic men and women.
Researchers also looked at data using the previously recommended cut-off point, which defined high risk as a 20 percent or greater 10-year risk score. The rates among all races, ethnicities and sexes decreased significantly at that level. Researchers found a significant decrease in rates among black and white women, but there was not a significant decrease among any groups of men.
The study is the first to use the atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk score — a tool that incorporates and weighs different risk factors — on a population level to identify risks based on race, ethnicity and sex. Researchers hope the trends found by the study will guide future research in understanding and addressing why some rates have spiked.
“The whole point of computing risk is to guide prevention, and if we find one group really needs more prevention or they’re going to have worse outcomes, it should be guiding us to say, ‘Hey, what are we going to do about that?’” Arch Mainous III, PhD, MA, lead author of the study and APHA member, told The Nation’s Health. “We need to start looking at factors on a prevention side, to figure out what variables are driving (the trend) to go up. I think that’s the next step. We need to find what’s causing (rates) to go up so we can address that.”
For more information, visit https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(18)31732-X/abstract.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association