Publication Title: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health

Pages: 951-956

Abstract: Prior evidence suggests that caregiving may increase risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) onset. This association has never been examined in a nationally (USA) representative sample, and prior studies could not fully control for socioeconomic confounders. This paper seeks to estimate the association between spousal caregiving and incident CVD in older Americans. Caregiving significantly predicted CVD incidence in the population overall. Long-term caregiving was associated with double the risk of CVD onset. This association for long-term care givers varied significantly by race: caregiving predicted CVD onset for white but not for non-white. Spousal caregiving independently predicted risk of CVD in a large sample of US adults. There was significant evidence that the effect for long-term care givers differs for non-whites and white.