Summary

The Jackson Heart Study (JHS) is an NHLBI- & NIMHD-supported cohort study of cardiovascular diseases among African Americans in Jackson, MS with an established network of JHS Vanguard Centers and scientific Working Groups (WGs) to support the following goals of the JHS: (1) conduct novel epidemiologic research on cardiovascular and related diseases, (2) serve as a resource to the scientific community in future research, (3) promote research training for early career investigators and other trainees in cardiovascular health equity, and (4) promote cardiovascular health in Jackson, MS. The JHS scientific WGs include co-chairs, senior and early career investigators, fellows, graduate students. Regularly scheduled meetings are held to facilitate the development of manuscript proposals, abstracts, poster presentations, and penultimate manuscripts based on JHS data. Representatives from these JHS scientific WGs present research results at national scientific meetings, JHS symposia and workshops, and JHS health promotion community meetings in Jackson, MS.

Cardiometabolic Risk Development and Management in Changing Neighborhoods

The overarching goal of this project is to use the Jackson Heart Study to investigate longitudinal associations between features of the neighborhood physical, social, and healthcare environment and cardiometabolic risk development and management over a 20-year period. Understanding these associations independently and synergistically is critical for the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease risk factors in African Americans and the reduction of racial health inequalities.

Research Methods

This project will employ a longitudinal investigation of changes in neighborhood environments and cardiometabolic risk factor development and management among African American adults in the JHS, capitalizing on a rich cohort, incorporating new measures and allowing us to answer policy and clinically relevant questions regarding cardiometabolic risk in African Americans living in the US South, an important, yet understudied population group. The study team will create a unique longitudinal dataset that contains detailed, time-varying, multilevel data and will conduct longitudinal analyses (including analyses of change-vs-change critical to causal inference) on a socioeconomically diverse sample of African American adults living in a Southern metropolitan area. The project will also utilize a range of state-of-the-art and emerging measurement approaches to characterize neighborhood environments over time. These measures include: 1) sophisticated measures of spatial access to resources constructed using GIS; 2) a built environment assessment derived from Google Street View, a novel “big data” source; and 3) survey-based measures of social environments derived from sociology. The project will examine both the independent and synergistic effects of neighborhood characteristics and primary health care access on the development and management of cardiometabolic risk factors which align with prominent health priorities related to precision medicine.

Acknowledgements

Research Team

• Sharrelle Barber, ScD, MPH: Principal Investigator
• Jessica Whitley, MPH: Senior Project Manager
• Ana V. Diez Roux, MD, PhD, MPH: Co-investigator
• Gina Lovasi, PhD, MPH: Co-investigator
• Jana Hirsch, PhD, MES: Co-investigator
• Brisa N. Sánchez, PhD: Co-investigator
• Mario Sims, PhD, Chief Science Officer, Jackson Heart Study
• Stephen Mooney, PhD, University of Washington, Seattle

Funding for this project is provided by the National Institutes of Health.