This application proposes an ancillary eye study to the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL). HCHS/SOL is a prospective, population-based, multicenter cohort, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and 6 other National Institutes of Health (NIH) Institutes, that is designed to 1) assess disease burden; and, 2) address cardiovascular disease (CVD), stroke, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, sleep disorders, dental caries and periodontal disease, hearing impairment, diabetes, kidney and liver disease, and cognitive impairment. This landmark study, the largest ever conducted in Hispanics/Latinos, constitutes a national resource of extensive, high-quality phenotypic and genotypic data. Participants include those of Mexican, Cuban, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Central and South American, and Other origins. HSHC/SOL recruited 16,415 participants for Visit #1 (2008-2011); data collection for Visit #2 (2014-2017) concluded 12/17 (Chicago and Miami Field Centers: 82.3% participation rate); and, NHLBI contracted HCHS/SOL Visit #3 (2019-2022) funding to serve as a platform for ancillary studies. We will recruit and perfom a detailed eye exam on 2500 HCHS/SOL participants from Chicago and Miami aged ?40 years to coincide with Visit #3. The HCHS/SOL Coordinating Center will provide direction in oversampling older adults to maximize disease detection efficiency, with sampling weights reflecting probabilities of selection to maintain accurate prevalence rates. Latinos of diverse backgrounds as in HCHS/SOL represent a rich sociocultural and genetically admixed group, inheriting a mixture of European, Native American, and African ancestry from populations previously isolated. As such, the HCHS/SOL Eye Study will represent the first highly admixed eye epidemiology cohort. This heterogeneity and intrinsic variability, essential in basic and clinical research, innovatively positions the HCHS/SOL Eye Study to assess important etiologic pathways amid prevalent risk factors and outcomes that cannot be assessed with homogenous cohorts. We propose to collect high-quality eye outcome data, identical to National Eye Institute (NEI)-funded population-based cohorts, which will allow the eye epidemiology community to, for the first time, assess novel hypotheses associated with systemic disease in a well-characterized, diverse cohort. The HCHS/SOL Eye Study is designed to 1) assess and compare the 2010 age-standardized prevalence of chronic eye disease across Hispanic/Latino groups using previously constructed HCHS/SOL ?genetic analysis groups? (Mainland: Mexicans, Central and South Americans; and, Caribbean: Cubans, Dominicans, and Puerto Ricans); and, 2) assess whether prevalent disease is associated with novel CVD, biomedical, and sociocultural risk factors. Proposed research leverages NHLBI-funded epidemiologic research supported by 6 other NIH Institutes, and represents a significant opportunity for highly innovative and efficient epidemiologic eye research.
The proposed HCHS/SOL Eye Study is a cohort study designed to assess the prevalence of chronic eye diseases and their associations with important risk factors in understudied Hispanic/Latinos of diverse backgrounds. Results from the HCHS/SOL Eye Study will provide important answers to i) identify the prevalence of chronic eye disease (i.e., diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, macular degeneration, cataract, visual impairment, blindness); ii) whether the prevalence of DR, OAG, and AMD varies across Hispanic/Latino groups using previously constructed HCHS/SOL ?genetic analysis groups? (Mainland: Mexicans, Central Americans, and South Americans; and, Caribbean: Cuban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican); and iii) whether prevalent disease is associated with novel cardiovascular, biological, and sociocultural risk factors. Answers to these questions will, for the first time, enhance our knowledge of disease burden among understudied Hispanic/Latino groups, and allow us to identify specific groups by origin, sociodemographic characteristics and sociocultural backgrounds to more efficiently use existing resources to prevent blinding eye disease.
