Rate of cardiac death elevated in women veterans
The age-adjusted rate of death from heart disease among women veterans did not significantly change from 2000 to 2017, but remained elevated compared with U.S. women, according to data presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions.
“The goals of this project were to evaluate trends in death from diseases of the heart in women Veterans from 2000-2017 and compare these trends to the corresponding national trends available through CDC,” Ramin Ebrahimi, MD, professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of interventional cardiovascular research and co-director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and colleagues wrote in an abstract.
Using national Department of Veterans Affairs electronic medical records data, researchers identified all women who visited any VA facility between 2000 and 2017 and obtained patient vital status and cause of death by linking the National Death Index database with the VA data. A total of 817,912 women veterans had at least one visit at a VA medical center during the study period.
In the VA cohort, 84,897 women died between 2000 and 2017, with 22.4% of deaths from diseases of the heart.
Age-adjusted rates of death from heart disease per 100,000 life-years for the women veterans fluctuated from 196.3 to 235.7 during the study period, according to the presentation. The age-adjusted rate of death from heart disease was 197.6 per 100,000 life-years in 2000 and 208.1 per 100,000 life-years in 2017, which represents a 5% increase, according to the presentation.
According to the abstract, prior data from the CDC demonstrated that during the 2000 to 2017 period, the age-adjusted rate of death from heart disease among women in the U.S. decreased 39%, from 268.1 per 100,000 person-years to 164.7 per 100,000 person-years.
In 2017, the age-adjusted rate of death from heart disease for women veterans was more than 26% higher than the rate for U.S. women, according to the presentation.
“Veterans face unique life challenges which can lead to special health care needs, as well as adverse health outcomes,” Donald Lloyd-Jones, MD, ScM, FAHA, president of the AHA and Eileen M. Foell Professor of Heart Research, professor of preventive medicine, medicine and pediatrics, and chair of the department of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said in a press release. “It’s important to understand how cardiovascular disease and its risk factors uniquely impact veterans by exploring things such as obesity, hypertension, post-traumatic stress disorder, pregnancy, depression and rates of cardiac death in this special population in order to help those who have served our country live longer, healthier lives.”
Editor’s Note: This article was updated Nov. 24, 2021, to update data regarding the age-adjusted cardiac death rate among women veterans in the U.S. The Editors regret the error.
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Ebrahimi R, et al. Presentation P1419. Presented at: American Heart Association Scientific Sessions; Nov. 13-15, 2021 (virtual meeting).