Abstract 360: Neighborhood-level Poverty and Incident Atrial Fibrillation: Analysis of Electronic Health Records From 2005-2018

Abstract

Introduction: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a leading cause of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Disparities in AF outcomes have been related to individual-level social determinants of health, including race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. While neighborhood-level factors, such as poverty, have been related to prevalence of key risk factors (e.g. obesity, hypertension), the association between neighborhood poverty and incident AF has not been previously examined. Methods: Using the Northwestern Medicine Enterprise Data Warehouse, we identified adults free of cardiovascular disease, with at least 5 years of follow-up from January 1, 2005 - December 31, 2013. Residential addresses were geocoded and matched to census tract level poverty estimates from the American Community Survey. Neighborhood poverty was defined as the proportion of residents in the census tract living below the US-defined poverty threshold. We categorized neighborhood poverty levels into tertiles. Generalized linear mixed effects models were used to examine the association between tertiles of neighborhood poverty and incident AF, adjusting for demographic (age, sex, race/ethnicity, insurance type) and AF risk factors (hypertension, diabetes, obesity and smoking status). Results: The cohort comprised 29,069 adults with a mean (SD) age of 51.4 (11.3) years, which included 58% women and 10% non-Hispanic Blacks. Higher rates of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and smoking were observed in higher poverty groups. Approximately, 3.4% of patients developed incident AF over a follow-up of 5 years. The adjusted odds of incident AF were higher for the medium poverty compared to the low poverty group (adjusted odds ratio, aOR 1.30 (95% CI 1.05-1.56). The aOR of incident AF was similarly higher in the high poverty compared to low poverty group though not statistically significant (Table). Conclusions: In a cohort of adults free of cardiovascular disease at baseline, we found that residence in a more deprived neighborhood was associated with higher rates of incident AF, even after adjustment for traditional risk factors. Understanding how neighborhood and individual-level clinical factors interact to increase the incidence of AF is critical to developing equitable prevention strategies in this increasingly common condition.