Health Disparities in Cardiovascular Disease Risk: From Genes to Neighborhoods

描述（由申请人提供）：心血管疾病（CVD）是一个主要的公共卫生问题，是死亡的主要原因，也是种族/民族健康差异的主要根源。由于 CVD 是一种多因素疾病，要真正了解其病因，需要研究许多遗传和环境因素之间的相互作用。因此，本研究的总体目标是增进我们对多层次因素（从基因到社区）如何协同影响 CVD 的理解。拟议研究的具体目标是：1）制定邻里社会经济、建筑/物理和社会环境的衡量标准，2）检查遗传因素和邻里因素之间的横向和纵向关联，以及它们与CVD风险因素之间的相互作用，3）检查CVD风险因素中的种族/民族差异，并确定这些差异是否可以通过邻里基因相互作用来解释。这些目标将通过将来自基因、环境和健康研究计划 (RPGEH) 的数据与来自社区和建筑环境的可用来源的数据合并来实现。 RPGEH 是美国最大的研究资源之一，旨在研究常见疾病的遗传和环境决定因素。候选人马哈辛·穆贾希德 (Mahasin Mujahid) 是加州大学伯克利分校流行病学助理教授。拟议的 NHLBI 指导职业发展奖 (K01) 将为 Mujahid 博士提供独特的机会，通过心血管病理生理学、遗传流行病学和统计遗传学方面的新培训，增强她目前在普通流行病学、社会流行病学和人口健康方面的专业知识。此外，Mujahid 博士将获得必要的支持和培训，以实现她的长期职业目标，即建立心血管疾病社会流行病学的独立研究项目，重点关注将社会因素与 CVD 联系起来的潜在生物、遗传和表观遗传途径。 （摘要完）

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD) are a major public health concern as the leading cause of death and as a major source of racial/ethnic health disparities. Because CVD is a multi-factorial disease, a true understanding of its etiology requires investigations of interactions among many genetic and environmental factors. Thus, the overall goal of this study is to advance our understanding of how multi-level factors (from genes to neighborhoods) synergistically affect CVD. The specific aims of the proposed research are to: 1) develop measures of neighborhood socioeconomic, built/physical, and social environments, 2) examine cross- sectional and longitudinal associations between genetic and neighborhood factors, and their interactions in relation to CVD risk factors, and 3) examine racial/ethnic differences in CVD risk factors and determine if these differences are explained by neighborhood-gene interactions. These aims will be achieved through the merging of data from the Research Program on Genes, Environment, and Health (RPGEH), with data derived from available sources on neighborhoods and the built environment. The RPGEH is one of the largest research resources in the U.S. designed to examine genetic and environmental determinants of common diseases. The candidate, Mahasin Mujahid, is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley. The proposed NHLBI Mentored Career Development Award (K01) will provide Dr. Mujahid with the unique opportunity to augment her current expertise in general epidemiology, social epidemiology, and population health with new training in cardiovascular pathophysiology, genetic epidemiology, and statistical genetics. Moreover, Dr. Mujahid will receive the necessary support and training to work towards her long-term career goal of establishing an independent research program on the social epidemiology of cardiovascular disease with an emphasis on the underlying biological, genetic, and epigenetic pathways linking social factors to CVD. (End of Abstract)