Grant: Project Grant

Heart disease is a serious problem that can occur "prematurely" - that is, prior to onset of menopause. In some situations, heart disease can arise in the postpartum period in people who have pregnancy complications. Pregnancy complications such as high blood pressure, kidney or heart issues occurring while a woman is pregnant are in fact risk factors for heart disease later on, yet current risk prediction tools used to decide about heart disease prevention strategies do not incorporate these pregnancy. Other factors like infertility are also commonly not accounted for. Importantly, some of these factors recur in more than one pregnancy or are more severe in a given pregnancy than others. We will test a novel approach to predict who is at highest risk and warrants aggressive surveillance and treatment using a statistical technique that accounts for timing and recurrence of events throughout a woman's reproductive lifespan. We hope this tool will be useful for patients and their providers when discussing postpartum health more broadly and heart disease prevention more specifically.