Public health and research have commonly aimed to monitor known risk factors through surveillance. Cancer and cardiovascular disease (CVD) remain the top mortality causes in the United States. However, the incidence of CVD mortality has decreased over the years.
Social and lifestyle factors have been linked to the risk of developing cancer and CVD. Yet, the potential changing correlation between risk factors, mortality, and morbidity over time has received little attention.
In the present study, researchers identified patterns in the occurrence of health risk factors over time and analyzed whether their correlation with mortality has changed.
The study compared two nationally representative samples from 1988-1994 and 1999-2014 with a five-year mortality follow-up in a cross-sectional manner.
