Racial Differences in Maintaining Optimal Health Behaviors Into Middle Age

Earlier development of cardiovascular disease risk factors in blacks versus whites may result from differences in maintaining health behaviors. Age-specific racial differences in maintaining health behaviors from ages 18 to 50 years were determined. In 1985–1986, the population-based Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study enrolled 5,115 participants aged 18–30 years. In 2017, a total of 2,485 blacks and 2,407 whites with one or more optimal health behaviors at baseline who attended one or more of seven follow-up exams over 25 years (i.e., through 2010–2011) were analyzed. The primary outcome, maintaining four or more optimal health behaviors, included BMI