Research Article Sex Differences in Associations of Depressive Symptoms with Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Metabolic Syndrome among African Americans

Copyright © 2013 Denise C. Cooper et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Young to middle-aged women usually have notably lower rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) than their male counterparts, but African American women lack this advantage. Their elevated CVD may be influenced by sex differences in associations between depressed mood and CVD risk factors. This cross-sectional study examined whether relations between scores on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression (CES-D) scale and a spectrum of CVD risk factors varied by sex among African Americans