Prevention & lipidsCross-sectional study
Evaluating the Attenuation of Black-White Disparities in Cardiovascular Disease Incidence and Total Mortality by Life’s Essential 8
- cross-sectional analysis
Authors' conclusion
In young and middle-aged adults, adjustment for LE8 score partially attenuated Black-White disparities in CVD events and mortality. Improving cardiovascular health from young adulthood could be an important strategy for reducing racial disparities.
Study context
- Population
- Black and White participants aged 20 to 59 years in the Cardiovascular Lifetime Risk Pooling Project, United States, 1985 to 2022, with calculable LE8 scoresfollowed for 499,000 person-years, 28.6% Black, 54.8% women
- Participants
- 20,618 participants
- Exposure
- Black participants vs White participants
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
LE8 score
Black participants
61.5
mean · SD 14.7
White participants
66.4
mean · SD 14.3
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
| Outcome | adjusted hazard ratio (95% CI) | |
|---|---|---|
| Incident CVD · adjusted for age, sex, and education | 1.55 (1.45–1.66) | |
| Incident CVD · with LE8 adjustment | 1.20 (1.12–1.29) | |
| Mortality | 1.59 (1.50–1.68) | |
| 0.512Adjusted hazard ratio (log scale) |
| Outcome | Black participants | White participants | Estimate |
|---|---|---|---|
| CVD event and death | |||
| CVD event | 1384 (23.4%) | 2932 (19.9%) | |
| Died | 1870 (31.7%) | 3790 (25.8%) |
- Cardiovascular disease (CVD) event and death — Developed CVD (all participants)
- 4316
- CVD event and death — Died (all participants)
- 5660
- Incident CVD — Reduction in the beta estimate with LE8 adjustment
- 58.1%
- Incident CVD — Blood pressure score: LE8 component with greatest reduction in the beta estimate
- 47.7%
Mortality
- Findings were similar for mortality analyses
Original publication
Evaluating the Attenuation of Black-White Disparities in Cardiovascular Disease Incidence and Total Mortality by Life’s Essential 8. Circ Popul Health Outcomes. Published 7 April 2026. doi:10.1161/circoutcomes.125.012794
Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it