Predicting Cardiovascular Risk by Geographical Region and Sex Using Classical Cardiovascular Risk Factors

A small number of modifiable risk factors may account for a significant proportion of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. However, the CVD burden attributable to classical risk factors depends on the populations studied and the methodologies used.

The Global Cardiovascular Risk Consortium (GCVRC) is an international collaboration that continuously includes cohort studies from around the world to improve cardiovascular risk prediction. The GCVRC uses extensively harmonized individual-level data from currently about 3 Mio individuals from 133 cohorts, 40 countries and 6 continents categorized in 8 geographical regions (based on a modification of WHO and United Nations definitions) - North America, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Russia, Asia, and Australia.

The consortium has a special focus on classical, potentially modifiable cardiovascular risk factors: body-mass index, systolic blood pressure, non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, current smoking, and diabetes. Key research questions include examining the impact of these factors on major outcomes by geographical region and sex, as well as estimating associated lifetime risk and the potential lifetime difference when modifying these risk factors.

This work is critical for developing regionally tailored CVD prevention and treatment strategies, identifying residual risk, and improving global cardiovascular health.

Based on GCVRC data, a landmark paper on the effect of classical risk factors on new-onset CVD and all-cause mortality was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2023 (doi.org/10.1056/nejmoa2206916), followed by a major study about the resulting lifetime estimates of these risk factors, also published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2025 (doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2415879).