Ethnic differences in cardiovascular disease risks

Although cardiovascular disease (CVD) affects one-third of Americans, little is known about the CVD risks among multi-ethnic populations in Hawaii. We calculated the Framingham Risk Score (FRS) to identify CVD risks using a community-based sample of over 1,400 adults with age 18 to 95 years old who are of Native Hawaiian, Filipino, Japanese-American, and Caucasian ancestries. Both BMI- and lipids-based FRS outcomes were calculated and they showed high correlation with each other (r = 0.96, p < 0.0001). Ethnic differences were identified among the 4 ethnic groups in the preliminary analyses. Using a >20% FRS as a cutoff for high CVD risk, Japanese had the highest (45%)  and Caucasians had the lowest (10%) people with high CVD risk, with Filipinos at 34% and Native Hawaiians at 20%, p < 0.0001. Although FRS itself has been adjusted for age, there was still high correlation between FRS and age (r = 0.71, p < 0.0001). Other potential risk factors were also examined hierarchically, e.g., biological, self-reported lifestyle and psychosocial variables. The results would be compared with those from data-driven big data statistical learning methods (e.g., Ridge regression, LASSO, and elastic Net).