LAUSR

Introduction: Heart failure (HF) risk and the underlying biological risk factors vary by race. Machine learning (ML) may improve race-specific HF risk prediction but this has not been fully evaluated. Methods: The study included participants from 4 cohorts (ARIC, DHS, JHS, and MESA) aged > 40 years, free of baseline HF, and with adjudicated HF event follow-up. Black adults from JHS and white adults from ARIC were used to derive race-specific ML models to predict 10-year HF risk. The ML models were externally validated in subgroups of black and white adults from ARIC (excluding JHS participants) and pooled MESA/DHS cohorts and compared to prior established HF risk scores developed in ARIC and MESA. Harrell’s C-index and Greenwood-Nam-D’Agostino chi-square were used to assess discrimination and calibration, respectively. Results: In the derivation cohorts, 288 of 4141 (7.0%) black and 391 of 8242 (4.7%) white adults developed HF over 10 years. The ML models had excellent discrimination in both black and white participants (C-indices = 0.88 and 0.89). In the external validation cohorts for black participants from ARIC (excluding JHS, N = 1072) and MESA/DHS pooled cohorts (N = 2821), 131 (12.2%) and 115 (4.1%) developed HF. The ML model had adequate calibration and demonstrated superior discrimination compared to established HF risk models (Fig A). A consistent pattern was also observed in the external validation cohorts of white participants from the MESA/DHS pooled cohorts (N=3236; 100 [3.1%] HF events) (Fig A). The most important predictors of HF in both races were NP levels. Cardiac biomarkers and glycemic parameters were most important among blacks while LV hypertrophy and prevalent CVD and traditional CV risk factors were the strongest predictors among whites (Fig B). Conclusions: Race-specific and ML-based HF risk models that integrate clinical, laboratory, and biomarker data demonstrated superior performance when compared to traditional risk prediction models.