{
  "abstract": "Introduction Understanding how perceived interpersonal discrimination may affect women’s cardiovascular health is key to informing prevention strategies, especially during mid-life when cardiovascular conditions emerge more frequently than in prior life stages.Methods Participants are 451 women in Project Viva. In 2021–2022, participants completed the 9-item, race-neutral Williams Everyday Discrimination Scale (WEDS) via survey; total score ranged from 9 to 54, with higher scores indicating higher perceived discrimination. In 2022–2024, we collected in-person measures of body mass index (BMI), blood pressure and sleep duration (via actigraphy) and quality (via Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System sleep disturbance and sleep-related impairment forms). We defined obesity as BMI ≥30 kg/m 2, hypertension as blood pressure ≥130/80 mm Hg or use of antihypertensive medications and short nightly sleep duration as sleep of <7 hours each night. We examined associations between WEDS (individual item and total scores) and cardiovascular outcomes using linear (continuous outcomes) or modified Poisson (binary outcomes) models.Results At outcome measurement, women had a mean (SD) age of 55.8 (4.9) years and WEDS score of 14.9 (5.9); 74% self-identified as non-Hispanic White and 10% as non-Hispanic Black. After adjusting for age at outcome assessment, household income and education, a 10-point increment in total WEDS score was associated with a higher obesity risk (RR=1.40, 95% CI 1.10 to 1.79), higher BMI (β=1.62 kg/m 2, 95% CI 0.50 to 2.74), shorter nightly sleep duration (β=−0.23 hours, 95% CI −0.41 to –0.06) and higher sleep disturbance (β=0.99, 95% CI −0.01 to 1.99) and sleep-related impairment t-scores (β=2.28, 95% CI 0.95 to 3.61). Most individual WEDS items were consistently associated with higher BMI and higher sleep impairment.Conclusions Higher perceived interpersonal discrimination was associated with higher BMI, risk of obesity, shorter sleep duration and poorer sleep quality among mid-life women. These findings underscore the association between interpersonal discrimination and cardiovascular health and highlight the importance of interventions aimed at reducing discrimination.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA",
        "Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Benjamin Grobman"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Sheryl L Rifas-Shiman"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Izzuddin M Aris"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Lifecourse Epidemiology of Adiposity and Diabetes Center and the Department of Epidemiology, Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colorado, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Wei Perng"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA",
        "Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Jorge E Chavarro"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA",
        "Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Stephen P Juraschek"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA",
        "Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Emily Oken"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA",
        "Diabetes Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Marie-France Hivert"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Mingyu Zhang"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Perceived discrimination and cardiovascular risk factors in mid-life women: results from Project Viva, a longitudinal cohort in the USA",
  "uid": "03d4b523-0e96-5d20-874a-017a7656c3b7"
}