October 2, 2017

Cleveland Clinic, The MetroHealth System Receive Grant to Enhance Heart Disease Risk Calculators

$2.2 Million National Institute on Aging Award to Develop New Model Incorporating Environmental and Neighborhood-Level Characteristics

Media Contact

Cleveland Clinic News Service | 216.444.0141

We’re available to shoot custom interviews & b-roll for media outlets upon request.

Media Downloads

CCNS health and medical content is consumer-friendly, professional broadcast quality (available in HD), and available to media outlets each day.

images: 0

video: 0

audio: 0

text: 0

Following its study showing that current clinical prediction models underestimate cardiovascular risk in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods, a research team led by investigators from Cleveland Clinic and The MetroHealth System has been awarded a $2.2 million National Institute on Aging grant to reduce health disparities for patients at risk for heart disease.

The award supports the development of a comprehensive risk calculator that incorporates an individual’s clinical risk factors in addition to environmental and neighborhood-level characteristics to better predict major cardiovascular disease, such as stroke and heart attack. Current risk assessment tools rely on clinical indicators alone such as weight, age and smoking history, and do not consider factors associated with where patients live.

The four-year grant is based on the team’s recently published paper in Annals of Internal Medicine analyzing electronic health data of nearly 110,000 Cleveland Clinic patients. The team found that current models severely underestimate risk in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods.“Poorer Americans are more likely to suffer from heart attacks and stroke, and are expected to live 10 fewer years than wealthier Americans,” said Jarrod Dalton, Ph.D., of Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute and co-primary investigator of the grant. “Accurate risk assessment is critical for identifying high-risk patients so that prevention strategies or targeted therapies can be used. We aim to understand better the complexity of residential, economic and clinical factors, and how they contribute to cardiovascular disease risk.”

The study showed that in patients from poorer communities, major cardiovascular events occurred at more than twice the rates predicted by existing risk assessment tools. According to the researchers, socioeconomic inequalities in healthcare are complex and could be related to barriers such as environmental exposure to toxins, financial stress, less healthy eating options and lack of safe places to exercise.

To develop the statistical model, the team will establish a new combined research registry based on electronic health records of more than 200,000 Cleveland Clinic and MetroHealth patients. They will supplement that data with neighborhood-level information from the U.S. Census Bureau and other government organizations. They will overlay this data to build a new comprehensive, systems-based tool for risk prediction.

“Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death for most Americans,” said MetroHealth’s Adam T. Perzynski, Ph.D., co-principal investigator. “Our collaboration on this project will help healthcare providers identify which of their patients could have poor heart disease outcomes. By incorporating non-clinical factors related to where people live, we can enhance personalized approach and target more effective interventions for specific subpopulations, and, ultimately reduce health disparities.”

The research team includes faculty from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences. The NIA grant number is R01AG055480.

About Cleveland Clinic

Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, it was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. Cleveland Clinic has pioneered many medical breakthroughs, including coronary artery bypass surgery and the first face transplant in the United States. Cleveland Clinic is consistently recognized in the U.S. and throughout the world for its expertise and care. Among Cleveland Clinic’s 81,000 employees worldwide are more than 5,743 salaried physicians and researchers, and 20,160 registered nurses and advanced practice providers, representing 140 medical specialties and subspecialties. Cleveland Clinic is a 6,690-bed health system that includes a 173-acre main campus near downtown Cleveland, 23 hospitals, 276 outpatient facilities, including locations in northeast Ohio; Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Toronto, Canada; Abu Dhabi, UAE; and London, England. In 2023, there were 13.7 million outpatient encounters, 323,000 hospital admissions and observations, and 301,000 surgeries and procedures throughout Cleveland Clinic’s health system. Patients came for treatment from every state and 132 countries. Visit us at clevelandclinic.org. Follow us at twitter.com/CleClinicNews. News and resources available at newsroom.clevelandclinic.org.

Editor’s Note: Cleveland Clinic News Service is available to provide broadcast-quality interviews and B-roll upon request.

Latest from the Newsroom