Matthew Dupre (PI) and Scott Lynch (Co-I) were recently awarded $2 million from NIH for an R01 study that will integrate risk trajectories and social determinants to enhance cardiovascular risk assessment in older adults. Funded by the National Institute on Aging, the study is a collaborative effort among faculty from DUPRI, and the Department of Sociology, Population Health Sciences, School of Nursing, and the University of Texas Southwestern.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of disability and death among U.S. older adults and represents an enormous public health burden. Although CVD risk assessment is recommended as the foundation to primary prevention and guiding treatment decisions, the current tool for risk assessment performs poorly in older adults and among disadvantaged population groups. The study will address these limitations by incorporating changes in risk factors over time and integrating social determinants of health to improve CVD risk-prediction and its translation to disease prevention in U.S. older adults.