Self-Rated Cardiovascular Risk and 15-Year Cardiovascular Mortality

Abstract
PURPOSE Many individuals perceive their cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk to be lower than established clinical tools would estimate, yet little is known about the long-term consequences of holding such optimistic beliefs. We evaluated whether lower self-ratings of CVD risk are associated with lower rates of CVD death after addressing potential confounding by an extensive set of social and biologic CVD risk factors.