Comparison of Cardiovascular Health Between US Army and Civilians

Background Cardiovascular conditions are common in US Army and civilian populations. The recently developed concept of ideal cardiovascular health provides a new approach to evaluating population cardiovascular status. Methods and Results We defined a cohort of 263 430 active duty Army personnel, aged 17 to 64 years, who completed a 2012 physical examination and a corresponding subset of the noninstitutionalized, civilian US population, who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey ( NHANES ) 2011 to 2012 cycle. We compared 4 cardiovascular health metrics (current smoking, body mass index, blood pressure, and diabetic status) between Army and civilian groups overall, and separately by sex, race/ethnicity, and age. The Army population was younger, was less often women or Hispanic, and had less post-high school education than the NHANES population. Smoking rates were ≈20% in the Army and NHANES groups, but