title: Making a case for quantitative assessment of cardiovascular risk.
abstract: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) causes nearly one third of all deaths worldwide. Estimates of the cumulative effects of the most common cardiovascular risk factors indicate that >30% of the chronic care burden of CVD and >50% of deaths from CVD are attributable to modifiable risk factors, such as cigarette smoking, elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, diabetes mellitus, and hypertension. While a significant percentage of patients present with one or more of these risk factors, health care practitioners encounter great difficulty in achieving long-term patient adherence to risk-factor modification interventions. More accurate stratification of death and disability risk across age, gender, and ethnic categories-and more comprehensible quantification of the magnitude and timeframe of the impact of risk-factor modification on such risks-will likely be useful to patients and health care practitioners in the implementation of more effective strategies. There is a need to study which risk-assessment methodologies, which depictions of short- and long-term risk, and which intervention modalities will have the greatest possible impact on patients' understanding of risk factors and risk-modification behaviors.
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois School of Medicine, Peoria, IL, USA and Sterling Rock Falls Clinic, 101 East Miller Road, Sterling, IL 61081, USA.
authors.forename: Peter P
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Toth