Definition
A cardiovascular risk factor is a predictor of one or more diseases of the heart or circulation.
Description
A “risk factor” is a variable that bears an empirical association with one or more diseases or medical conditions. “Cardiovascular disease” and “heart disease” refer to a set of specific disorders that affect the heart and circulation. Therefore, a cardiovascular risk factor is a correlate of one or more cardiovascular diseases. A distinction is sometimes made between risk and protective factors as a way to capture the direction of the relationship. For example, elevated cholesterol is a risk factor, whereas greater social integration is a protective factor.
The identification of risk factors for medical conditions is a major goal of epidemiology. The term “risk factor” was introduced in the context of cardiovascular epidemiology, a field that underwent great expansion during the...
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Bronson, C.A., Rubinstein, R.S., Contrada, R.J. (2020). Cardiovascular Risk Factors. In: Gellman, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_1612-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_1612-2
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