Racial Disparities in Cardiovascular Health Behaviors are Partially Explained by Socioeconomic, Psychosocial and Environmental Factors: the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study

Introduction: There are known racial differences in cardiovascular health behaviors, including smoking, physical activity, and diet quality. A better understanding of factors that explain these differences may suggest novel intervention targets for reducing disparities in cardiovascular disease. Objective: To examine whether socioeconomic, psychosocial and environmental factors mediate racial differences in health behaviors. Methods: We studied 3,028 Black or White CARDIA participants who were enrolled at age 18-30 years in 1985-86 and completed the 30 year follow-up visit in 2015-2016. Health behaviors included smoking (current, former ≤ 12 months, never smoker/quit u003e12 months), physical activity (inactive, active but not meeting guidelines, meeting guidelines), and a surrogate for healthy eating using fast food and sugar-sweetened beverage consumption (frequency per week ≥ 2, some but u003c 2, none). Each behavior was assigned a value of 0 for poor, 1 for intermediate or 2 for ideal and summed to calculate ...