Elevated cardiovascular risk factors and chronic disease mortality in the Caribbean: A Cross-Sectional Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains a leading cause of premature mortality in the Caribbean, with particularly high rates from stroke and hypertensive heart disease. While global outcomes have improved, CVD-related mortality in the Caribbean remains elevated. This study examined sex-specific CVD mortality, risk factors, and health policy indicators across non-Latin Caribbean nations, using data from the 2019 PAHO Enlace Portal and comparing results to North America (United States and Canada). Despite North Americans exhibiting more overall risky CVD behaviors, CVD mortality was higher in the Non-Latin Caribbean compared to North America (196.7 vs. 122.6 deaths per 100,000). Total-to-HDL cholesterol ratios were significantly higher in the Caribbean, both in men (4.01 vs. 3.63; p < 0.0001) and women (3.82 vs. 3.01; p < 0.0001), indicating reduced cardioprotective effects of HDL. Hypertensive heart disease mortality was significantly higher in Caribbean women compared to North American women (p < .01), with a similar but non-significant trend in men. Caribbean men also had significantly higher rates of undiagnosed hypertension compared to North American men (47.6% vs. 20.8%; p < .001). NCD policy implementation across the Caribbean was inconsistent, with major gaps in CVD drug therapy access, alcohol advertising restrictions, NCD planning, and surveillance systems. These findings underscore the urgent need for regional investment in prevention, policy enforcement, and culturally relevant strategies to reduce CVD disparities and improve health outcomes in the Caribbean.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".