Overview

• The online calculator, built on the American Heart Association’s PREVENT equations, converts traditional 10-year cardiovascular risk percentages into an intuitive “heart age” for clinician-patient discussions.
• Validation using National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data from over 14,000 US adults aged 30–79 shows most participants have heart ages exceeding their actual ages by several years.
• Disparities are most pronounced among adults with lower education or income and among Black and Hispanic populations, whose heart ages often outpace their chronological ages by more than eight years.
• The free tool is intended for use by clinicians during consultations and is not a substitute for comprehensive cardiovascular care.
• Lead investigator Dr. Sadiya Khan and her team are launching follow-up studies to determine whether age-based risk framing enhances patient engagement and improves preventive outcomes.