A new web-based calculator will better assess the risk of heart disease in British black and minority ethnic groups. These groups are often wrongly assessed.
ETHRISK is for everyday use in the doctor's surgery and other primary care settings. It has been developed by researchers at the University of Bristol to improve prediction of the heart disease risks of seven British black and minority ethnic groups.
Ethnic groups within Britain have a different risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD), when compared with the general population in Britain. However, their risks are not being correctly assessed, due to the outdated method of calculation.
Dr Peter Brindle, lead author on the paper published online in the BMJ journal Heart, said: "The ETHRISK calculator adjusts for ethnic groups and is based on a re-calibration of the Framingham risk equations. It provides a much more realistic assessment of the risk of having heart disease and stroke within a 10-year period, faced by an individual from one of these groups.
"Once the blood pressure and cholesterol measurements have been taken, the nurse or doctor can go online and plug in the numbers to get a more accurate risk score for that individual. "
The recommended way of preventing heart disease involves using the Framingham risk score to identify high-risk patients. Patients above an agreed threshold are prescribed preventive treatments. However, the relevance of the Framingham score to the British population is uncertain, particularly when applied to ethnic groups, because the US data on which Framingham is based, are over 20 years old.