Citation

Li L, Lacey RE. Heart 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, BMJ Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1136/heartjnl-2020-316991

PMID

32665363

Abstract

Childhood maltreatment (abuse and neglect) is a preventable risk factor associated with a range of health outcomes. There is now extensive evidence on links between childhood maltreatment and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in adulthood.1 It is known that the occurrence of maltreatment and distributions of some CVD outcomes differ by gender, raising the question as to whether the association of childhood maltreatment with adult CVD differs by gender, and importantly, the reasons and potential mechanisms for such differences. Yet few studies have explicitly compared the association between men and women. Understanding whether gender modifies the relationship will have important implications on deciding whether intervention aiming to reduce the risk of CVD should be tailored differently for maltreated men and women.
Main findings from the UK Biobank

The study by Soares and colleagues using the large UK Biobank cohort adds to our understanding on the impact of gender on CVD risk in adults who have experienced maltreatment in childhood. The authors investigated the associations of individual type of maltreatment (also number of types) with three CVD outcomes (hypertensive disease, ischaemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease) and tested gender differences in the associations. The outcomes were derived from both self-reported and objective measures of CVD, the latter of which included hospital and death register data. The large sample size provides statistical power and enables the investigation of the gender-specific risk for each CVD outcome, especially for infrequent maltreatment types, such as sexual abuse. This study found consistent associations between childhood maltreatment and adult CVD. The associations were generally stronger in women than men, although the gender differences were mostly modest. In particular, the associations of physical abuse with ischaemic heart disease (relative risk 1.47 for women vs 1.19 for men) and with any CVD (1.14 vs 1.07), and emotional neglect with ischaemic heart disease (1.41 vs 1.18) were significantly stronger in women...

Language: en

Keywords

epidemiology; cardiac risk factors and prevention