Journal of Biometrics & Biostatistics

When People Don't Know Their Numbers: Exploring an Approach to Choosing Proxy Biometrics in Cardiovascular Disease Risk Assessment

Abstract

Brittany U Carter, Nik Fowler-Hainen, and Lauren R Smith

when individuals do not know their numbers. Methodology: Proxy biometric values for Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP), Total Cholesterol (TC), and High-Density Lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol were created using data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey 2015-2016 dataset stratifying by age group, sex, race/ethnicity, and biometric level. These proxy biometric values were assigned to individuals who completed the WellSuite® IV Health Risk Assessment (HRA) for the Workforce based on their demographics and biometric level. Paired sample t-tests were used to evaluate differences between proxy biometric values and those reported in the HRA as well as the 10-year CVD risk based on either biometrics.
Findings: Proxy biometric values for SBP, TC, and HDL cholesterol were statistically significantly different from those reported in the HRA. Proxy biometric values performed better in some subgroups than others. The 10-year CVD risk based on proxy biometric values were also significantly different from risk based on biometrics reported in the HRA, however, only 7.4% of HRA participants changed CVD risk levels. Conclusion: Using proxy biometric values from population health data may be one solution to assessing CVD risk when individuals do not know their numbers but only when done outside the healthcare setting. Future research is needed.
Limitations: The populations from which the data are derived differed, and decisions regarding the assignment of proxy biometric values may have contributed to the statistically significant differences between biometric values and CVD risk.