Low Prevalence of “Ideal Cardiovascular Health” in a Community-Based Population

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Abstract
Background—: Cardiovascular health is a new construct defined by the American Heart Association (AHA) as part of its 2020 Impact Goal definition. The applicability of this construct to community-based populations and the distributions of its components by race and sex have not been reported. Methods and Results—: The AHA construct of cardiovascular health and the AHA ideal health behaviors index and ideal health factors index were evaluated among 1933 participants (mean age 59 years; 44% blacks; 66% women) in the community-based Heart Strategies Concentrating on Risk Evaluation (Heart SCORE) study. One of 1933 participants (0.1%) met all 7 components of the AHA's definition of ideal cardiovascular health. Less than 10% of participants met ≥5 components of ideal cardiovascular health in all subgroups (by race, sex, age, and income level). Thirty-nine subjects (2.0%) had all 4 components of the ideal health behaviors index and 27 (1.4%) had all 3 components of the ideal health factors index. Blacks had significantly fewer ideal cardiovascular health components than whites (2.0±1.2 versus 2.6±1.4; P P <0.001). No interaction was found between race and sex. Conclusion—: The prevalence of ideal cardiovascular health is extremely low in a middle-aged community-based study population. Comprehensive individual and population-based interventions must be developed to support the attainment of the AHA′s 2020 Impact Goal for cardiovascular health.

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