Introduction: High tobacco smoking prevalence in people with low SES or serious psychological distress in the U.S. may increase cardiovascular disease risk among these marginalized subpopulations. The authors estimate how smoking disparities contribute to cardiovascular disease disparities.
Methods: Using the Simulation of Tobacco and Nicotine Outcomes and Policy model, a validated microsimulation model of tobacco use and clinical outcomes, the authors used 2004-2019 data from the National Health Interview Survey to first compare 20-year cumulative cardiovascular disease incidence for people aged 40 years by sex, smoking status, and marginalized subpopulation membership. Second, the authors simulated the marginalized subpopulations with representative age, sex, and smoking status distributions to estimate 20-year cumulative cardiovascular disease incidence under status quo and counterfactual scenarios. In the counterfactual scenario, smoking prevalence and trends in the low SES and serious psychological distress subpopulations match those in the higher SES and non-SPD subpopulations, respectively.
Results: The model-projected impact of smoking on 20-year cumulative cardiovascular disease incidence is considerably larger than the impact of low SES or serious psychological distress; for example, among males aged 40 years, cumulative cardiovascular disease incidence is 28.3% for low SES people who currently smoke, 13.0% for low SES people who never smoke, and 26.2% for higher SES people who currently smoke. In the second analysis, in the status quo scenario, model-projected 20-year cumulative cardiovascular disease incidence is 19.3% for low SES and 22.1% for serious psychological distress; in the counterfactual scenario, it is 18.1% for low SES and 19.6% for serious psychological distress.
Conclusions: Interventions focused on reducing smoking disparities could substantially reduce cardiovascular disease in marginalized subpopulations.
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