Cardiovascular Health Trajectories from Birth Thru Adolescence in A Diverse Cohort of Children

This generation of children is one of the first in centuries to have a shorter projected lifespan than their parents. One of the driving reasons behind this decline in health is due to the growing prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors particularly obesity among youth. The overarching goal of this proposal is to identify cardiovascular health trajectories from birth through age 20 among a diverse cohort of 7,000 children and their families who have already have clinical phenotyping to which we will add detailed behaviors and follow them longitudinally. Using an innovative study design for a pragmatic cohort utilizing technology-enabled data collection we will recruit a diverse cohort of children from a city-wide electronic health record (EHR) system. These parents/children will complete a developmentally appropriate and clinically feasible set of online surveys and questionnaires to assess behaviors and lifestyles that will be linked with their EHR data being used in a prior study. At two-years we will re-assess each child’s CVH. Our innovative study design will allow us to define CVH trajectories for a diverse group of children from birth through age 20. These trajectories will then be used to create a CVH growth curve ready for use in clinical practice. The findings from this study will be critical in targeting prevention strategies to high-risk children and critical periods during the life course in order to prevent the loss of CVH in childhood and preserve and promote CVH across the life course.