Percentiles Presented for 30-Year Cardiovascular Disease Risk

FRIDAY, Nov. 21, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Population-based age- and sex-specific percentiles for 30-year cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk have been developed based on the Predicting Risk of CVD Events equations, according to a study published online Nov. 17 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Vaishnavi Krishnan, from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and colleagues used data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults aged 30 to 59 years without prevalent CVD in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2011 to March 2020. The analyses included 8,686 NHANES participants, representing about 91 million U.S. adults.

The researchers found that the median 30-year absolute CVD risk was 13.1 percent in the overall sample. Among women and men aged 30 to 59 years, the corresponding percentile values were developed and assessed for each age for 30-year risk for CVD, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), and heart failure. At age 45 years, the 50th percentile of 30-year CVD risk was 9.9 and 16.2 percent for women and men, and the corresponding 75th percentile was 14.7 and 21.2 percent, respectively. For ASCVD and heart failure, similar patterns were seen, with higher 30-year absolute risks in men than women.

“A 30-year time horizon is difficult for most people to grasp,” coauthor Sadiya S. Khan, M.D., also from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said in a statement. “We hope that being able to compare your long-term risk to others in the same age makes the information more relatable, and therefore, actionable.”

Several authors disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

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