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We sought to examine the role of social and environmental conditions that determine an individual’s behaviors and risk of disease—collectively known as social determinants of health (SDOH)—in shaping cardiovascular (CV) health of the population and giving rise to disparities in risk factors, outcomes, and clinical care for cardiovascular disease (CVD), the leading cause of death in the United States (US). Traditional CV risk factors have been extensively targeted in existing CVD prevention and management paradigms, often with little attention to SDOH. Limited evidence suggests an association between individual SDOH (e.g., income, education) and CVD. However, inequities in CVD care, risk factors, and outcomes have not been studied using a broad SDOH framework. We examined existing evidence of the association between SDOH—organized into 6 domains, including economic stability, education, food, neighborhood and physical environment, healthcare system, and community and social context—and CVD. Greater social adversity, defined by adverse SDOH, was linked to higher burden of CVD risk factors and poor outcomes, such as stroke, myocardial infarction (MI), coronary heart disease, heart failure, and mortality. Conversely, favorable social conditions had protective effects on CVD. Upstream SDOH interact across domains to produce cumulative downstream effects on CV health, via multiple physiologic and behavioral pathways. SDOH are major drivers of sociodemographic disparities in CVD, with a disproportionate impact on socially disadvantaged populations. Efforts to achieve health equity should take into account the structural, institutional, and environmental barriers to optimum CV health in marginalized populations. In this review, we highlight major knowledge gaps for each SDOH domain and propose a set of actionable recommendations to inform CVD care, ensure equitable distribution of healthcare resources, and reduce observed disparities.

Pectus excavatum is the most common congenital chest wall deformity. Its effects on cardiopulmonary function, exercise capacity, and body image are variable across affected patients. Management practices for pectus deformity vary considerably, but most authors agree on the need for surgical correction if pectus index is >3.0 and there is evidence of cardiac compression on imaging. We encountered a case of a middle-aged man with severe pectus deformity and a coincidental large coronary artery to right atrium fistula. Despite a pectus index of 4.8 and severe right heart compression on thoracic imaging, he had not developed any symptoms or hemodynamic complication from this pectus deformity. Additionally, hemodynamic studies revealed normal left and right heart function, normal pulmonary artery pressures, and absence of any evidence of myocardial ischemia or significant left-to-right shunt. These abnormalities would have been expected with a coronary fistula of this size. His pectus deformity and coronary fistula had opposing hemodynamic effects, thus protecting him from severe complications of either. Presently, an association between congenital coronary fistulae and pectus excavatum is not known, and this is one of the very first reported cases of these two congenital abnormalities coexisting in a patient. Additionally, concurrence of these two conditions poses a unique therapeutic challenge due to their opposing hemodynamic effects.

Introduction: Social determinants of health (SDOH) are contextual factors and shared experiences that impact an individual’s life and health. Unfavorable SDOH are recognized as a major source of excess cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk; however, prior studies have focused on restricted sets of SDOH domains. We aimed to assess the burden of multiple unfavorable SDOH at the population level, and the association between increasing cumulative burden of unfavorable SDOH features and atherosclerotic CVD (ASCVD) prevalence. Methods: Using a nationally-representative sample of 164,696 adults from the National Health Interview Survey (2013-17) we identified 39 parameters (classified as favorable or unfavorable) from the Healthy People 2020SDOH domains: Economic stability, Education, Food access, Neighborhood conditions, Social context, Health systems. An aggregate score of these features ranging 0-36 was then divided into quartiles-- the most unfavorable scores in the highest quartile. ASCVD was ascertained via self-report. Results: 15,758 individuals (8%), representing ~19.6 million Americans, had ASCVD and were more likely to experience economic instability, adverse neighborhood and social cohesion, psychologic distress, food scarcity, and significant cost and non-cost-related healthcare barriers than those without ASCVD. The age adjusted mean (SD) SDOH risk score among ASCVD vs non-ASCVD participants was 12.5 (0.13) vs 0.9 (0.03) respectively. We observed a graded increase in ASCVD prevalence with higher SDOH quartiles (Figure). In multivariate analyses, adults with highest SDOH scores had 2-fold higher odds of having ASCVD compared to those with lowest scores (Figure). Conclusions: In the US, aggregate SDOH risk significantly discriminate risk of prevalent ASCVD among US adults. Standardized SDOH risk scores have the potential to inform risk stratification models at the individual level for addressing avoidable social inequities in health status.

CAC (coronary artery calcium) scoring is a noninvasive imaging modality which can be used to assess cardiovascular risk in asymptomatic patients and as a guide for initiating preventive therapy. While CAC scoring has gained wider acceptability, perceptions and practice patterns of providers