Figure 2. Joint Associations of Major Risk Factors Measured at Baseline With Carotid Plaque Burden and Carotid Intima-Media Thickness (cIMT) in 2643 Participants Without Cardiovascular Disease at Resurvey.

Associations with carotid plaque burden (A) and cIMT (B) were adjusted for age, sex, and geographic area. The smoking score (scaled to have an SD of 1) includes the terms for smoking status: never, occasional, ex-regular, or current regular smoker with the number of cigarettes smoked currently. For example, in the major risk factors joint model for carotid artery plaque burden (A), the smoking score is 0 for never smokers, −0.16 for occasional smokers, 0.49 for ex-smokers, and 1.44 plus 0.04 per cigarette per day for current smokers. Thus, a current smoker of 15 cigarettes per day would have a score of approximately 2. For consistency with other factors, the diabetes and diagnosed hypertension associations are displayed as the association per SD of the condition prevalence; to convert to the effect with having the condition, divide the values in the figure by the SD of the respective prevalence. SDs are diagnosed hypertension prevalence, 0.29, diabetes prevalence, 0.20, carotid plaque burden, 1.1 mm, and cIMT, 0.16 mm; SBP, 21 mm Hg; the residuals of DBP adjusted for SBP (DBP-given-SBP), 7 mm Hg; LDL-C, 26 mg/dL; and HDL-C, 11 mg/dL (to convert HDL-C and LDL-C to millimoles per liter, multiply by 0.0259). DBP indicates diastolic blood pressure; HDL-C, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol; LDL-C, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol; and SBP, systolic blood pressure.