{"id":45661,"date":"2014-10-20T17:05:49","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T21:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?post_type=voices&p=45661"},"modified":"2015-06-15T19:31:03","modified_gmt":"2015-06-15T19:31:03","slug":"are-women-who-live-near-roadways-at-greater-risk-for-sudden-cardiac-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2014\/10\/20\/are-women-who-live-near-roadways-at-greater-risk-for-sudden-cardiac-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Women Who Live Near Roadways at Greater Risk for Sudden Cardiac Death?"},"content":{"rendered":"

CardioExchange\u2019s Harlan M. Krumholz<\/b> interviews Jaime E. Hart<\/b> about her research group\u2019s study of the relation between residential proximity to roadways and sudden cardiac death in women. <\/i>The study is published in <\/i>Circulation<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Krumholz: <\/i><\/b>Please describe your main findings for our readers.<\/b><\/p>\n

Hart:<\/i><\/b> Among 107,130 women in the Nurses\u2019 Health Study, women living within 50 meters of a major roadway had a 38% greater risk for sudden cardiac death (SCD) and a 24% greater risk for fatal coronary heart disease, compared with women living at least 500 meters away.\u00a0The findings persisted after adjustment for multiple traditional cardiovascular risk factors.<\/p>\n

Krumholz: <\/i><\/b>During a period of 26 years, the SCD rate was 0.5%, or 0.02% per year. Does the fact that living near a roadway\u00a0was associated with almost a 40% increased risk have any practical importance?<\/b><\/p>\n

Hart:<\/i><\/b> This is an excellent point.\u00a0For any given individual, the risk for SCD, even with residential exposure to a major roadway, is very low.\u00a0However, this level of increased risk is important on a population level.<\/p>\n

Krumholz:<\/i><\/b> Given that<\/b> property near roadways may be less expensive, could the risk be related to socioeconomic factors?<\/b><\/p>\n

Hart:<\/i><\/b> Residual confounding by socioeconomic status is always a concern in studies of roadway proximity.\u00a0However, women in this cohort tend to be of middle to upper SES, as they all had to be nurses at enrollment.\u00a0We also adjusted our analyses for a number of individual-level and census-tract\u2013level measures of SES, so there isn\u2019t likely to be substantial residual confounding.<\/p>\n

Krumholz:<\/i><\/b> What do you think people should do as a result of this research?<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

Hart:<\/i><\/b> First, wait for confirmation in other studies.\u00a0Although the findings are consistent with the literature suggesting that roadway proximity is associated with increased risk for several adverse cardiovascular outcomes, our specific results need to be confirmed in other populations.\u00a0An important next step is to identify what specific exposures, such as noise or air pollution, may underlie these findings.<\/p>\n

JOIN THE DISCUSSION<\/b><\/p>\n

Share your thoughts on the findings from Dr. Hart\u2019s study.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jaime E. Hart discusses her study of the relation between residential proximity to roadways and sudden cardiac death in women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1066,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2399,2392,897],"class_list":["post-45661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-road-traffic","tag-socioeconomic-status","tag-sudden-cardiac-death"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1066"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}