Incidence rates of heart diseases among ethnic, gender, and geographic subgroups in the All of Us prospective cohort study

Valerie Czach

Mentor: Dr. Jason Wong, Epidemiology and Community Health Branch, National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health.

Date/Time: August 22nd, 2024 at 3:20pm.

Abstract: As part of the federal Precision Medicine Initiative, the NIH is leading the effort to build a national, large-scale prospective cohort study with one million or more volunteers to extend precision medicine to all diseases. The AllofUs(AoU) Research Program will be a participant-engaged, data-driven enterprise supporting research at the intersection of lifestyle, environment, and genetics to produce new knowledge with the goal of developing more effective ways to prolong health and treat disease.

To describe the prevalence and incidence of heart disease in the AoU cohort, I analyzed available participant data (n=274,295) using Python on the AoU cloud platform. I estimated the crude incidence rates of atrial fibrillation, heart failure and cardiomyopathy, and myocardial infarction (MI) ascertained via linked electronic health records over the prospective follow-up period. Subsequently, I estimated the age- and sex-adjusted incidence rates using the 2000 U.S. standard population weights from the Census P25-1130: atrial fibrillation – 508.06, heart failure and cardiomyopathy – 118.33, MI – 390.10. Further analyses were conducted in separate subgroups defined by sex/gender, race/ethnicity, and geographic location to better understand potential health disparities among different populations. The analysis revealed differences in heart disease burden by sex/gender and race/ethnicity consistent with previous studies and a higher prevalence rate of MI among the AoU cohort than a representative sample of the general U.S. population. These results indicate that AoU is a valuable population science resource for the study of heart disease in diverse populations that have been previously underrepresented. This initial exploration highlights the need for further investigation into the comparability between AoU and the general U.S. population.