Assessing Performance of the Veterans Affairs Women Cardiovascular Risk Model in Predicting a Short-Term Risk of Cardiovascular Disease Incidence Using United States Veterans Affairs COVID-19 Shared Data

The current study assessed performance of the new Veterans Affairs (VA) women cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk score in predicting women veterans’ 60-day CVD event risk using VA COVID-19 shared cohort data. The study data included 17,264 women veterans—9658 White, 6088 African American, and 1518 Hispanic women veterans—ever treated at US VA hospitals and clinics between 24 February and 25 November 2020. The VA women CVD risk score discriminated patients with CVD events at 60 days from those without CVD events with accuracy (area under the curve) of 78%, 50%, and 83% for White, African American, and Hispanic women veterans, respectively. The VA women CVD risk score itself showed good accuracy in predicting CVD events at 60 days for White and Hispanic women veterans, while it performed poorly for African American women veterans. The future studies are needed to identify non-traditional factors and biomarkers associated with increased CVD risk specific to African American women and incorporate them to the CVD risk assessment.