Abstract
Few prospective studies examine multilevel resilience resources and psychosocial factors in relation to cardiovascular health and disease. Recent research indicates that resilience resources are associated with a reduction in the incidence of cardiovascular disease-related events, but few studies have examined this relationship across different racial/ethnic populations or in large cohorts. Harmonization may address these limitations because it allows data from several cohorts to be analyzed together, potentially increasing sample size and in turn power overall and in minority populations. This article describes the process involved in combining 3 cardiovascular health-focused cohorts: Jackson Heart Study, Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, and Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America Study. Using a systematic process, we identified appropriate data harmonization techniques to use in harmonizing variables across cohorts. Variables included exposures (eg, resilience resources), outcomes (eg, American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7), and covariates (eg, race and ethnicity). Post-harmonization examinations included psychometric analyses of the harmonized variables. A total of 13 284 participants were included in the final harmonized data set. This project provides opportunities for future research in resilience resources and informs future studies that need to harmonize data. Results based on the harmonized data set could inform interventions and policies.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 608-624 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | American journal of epidemiology |
| Volume | 194 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 1 2025 |
Funding
This work was supported by the National Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01HL135200. One hundred percent of the project costs ($438,847) are financed with Federal money. The corresponding website is https://grants.nih.gov/grants/oer.htm . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The individual cohorts did not have any role in the funding of this research, but the cohorts themselves received support from several funding sources. The Jackson Heart Study (JHS) is supported and conducted in collaboration with Jackson State University (HHSN268201800013I, https://www.jsums.edu/ ), Tougaloo College (HHSN268201800014I, https://www.tougaloo.edu/ ), the Mississippi State Department of Health (HHSN268201800015I, https://msdh.ms.gov/ ) and the University of Mississippi Medical Center (HHSN268201800010I, HHSN268201800011I and HHSN268201800012I, https://www.umc.edu/ ) contracts from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI, https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/ ) and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD, https://www.nimhd.nih.gov/ ). The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) study was supported by contracts 75N92020D00001, HHSN268201500003I, N01-HC-95159, 75N92020D00005, N01-HC-95160, 75N92020D00002, N01-HC-95161, 75N92020D00003, N01-HC-95162, 75N92020D00006, N01-HC-95163, 75N92020D00004, N01-HC-95164, 75N92020D00007, N01-HC-95165, N01-HC-95166, N01-HC-95167, N01-HC-95168, and N01-HC-95169 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute ( https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/ ), and by grants UL1-TR-000040, UL1-TR-001079, and UL1-TR-001420 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS, https://ncats.nih.gov/ ). The Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) project described was supported by Grant Number R01HL093009 from the National Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute ( https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/ ) and the National Center for Research Resources ( https://www.nih.gov/research-training/research-resources ) and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences ( https://ncats.nih.gov/ ), National Institutes of Health, through UCSF-CTSI Grant Number UL1RR024131. The funders had and will not have a role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Keywords
- cardiovascular disease
- data harmonization
- data pooling
- psychosocial risks
- resilience
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Medicine
