Incident Events & Mortality Data

Since 2009, HCHS/SOL has ongoing longitudinal follow-up to identify incident cardiovascular and pulmonary events and mortality among cohort participants. Follow-up information is collected through annual follow-up call, medical record abstraction, and linkage to external sources. These procedures allow investigators to study the prospective occurrence of major health outcomes after baseline enrollment.

Primary incident endpoints identified during follow-up include fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular and pulmonary outcomes such as heart disease, stroke, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) resulting in hospitalizations or emergency room visits. 

Mortality is ascertained through multiple complementary sources, including proxy informants, death certificates, and linkage with the National Death Index. These procedures support comprehensive identification of deaths and allow investigators to examine both all-cause and cause-specific mortality in longitudinal analyses. 

Detailed documentation describing event definitions, adjudication procedures, follow-up time, and analytic variables is available to investigators and should be consulted when conducting time-to-event or survival analyses.