This report describes a groundbreaking military-civilian collaboration that benefits from an Army and Department of Defense (DoD big data business intelligence platform called the Person-Event Data Environment (PDE). The PDE - a consolidated data repository that contains unclassified but sensitive manpower, training, financial, health, and medical records covering U.S.
Prospective data from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative study of older US adults, was analyzed to examine the relationship between optimism and heart failure, adjusting for sociodemographic, biological, behavioral, and psychological covariates. Higher optimism was associated with a lower risk of incident heart failure during the follow-up period, and these effects persisted when accounting for covariates.
Little is known about the perception of lifetime risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Researchers recruited subjects from the Dallas Heart Study, and each subject was classified as high or low for risk of CVD. Subjects were then assessed for their perceived lifetime risk for a myocardial infarction. There was significant discordance between perceived and predicted lifetime risk.
An analysis of baseline examination data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Artherosclerosis was conducted in order to investigate predictors of cardiovascular health (CVH) - a global measure of one's burden of cardiovascular risk factors. Neighborhood environment - such as favorable food stores, physical activity resources, and walking/physical activity environment - and neighborhood socioeconomic status were found to be associated with ideal CVH.
Researchers examined the role of marital status in the development of type 2 diabetes. Using prospective data from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, researchers found that unmarried men (especially widowers) had an elevated risk of developing type 2 diabetes, when compared to married men (adjusting for other factors). This increased risk may be partially mediated by unfavorable changes in lifestyle, diet, and adiposity.
