Across three cohorts, higher SES was associated with lower CHD risk, 233 Olink plasma proteins were associated with SES, and 21 of these showed significant indirect effects on the SES-CHD association, suggesting that social factors may influence cardiovascular disease via proteomic profiles.
Higher cumulative SES score was associated with a lower risk of incident coronary heart disease.
The association between higher SES and lower stroke risk was borderline and not statistically significant.
A large number of plasma proteins were associated with SES after multiple testing correction.
Twenty-one SES-associated proteins were statistical mediators of the association between SES and incident CHD.
The authors conclude that different proteomic pathways link SES to cardiovascular disease, suggesting social factors may influence CVD via proteomic profiles.
This study looked at whether blood proteins could help explain why people with lower socioeconomic status (based on education, income, and employment) have more heart disease. Using data from three large U.S. cohorts totaling roughly 4,200 people, the researchers found that people with higher SES scores had a lower risk of coronary heart disease. A similar trend for stroke was seen but did not reach statistical significance. The researchers measured over 1,200 proteins in blood and found that 233 were linked to SES. Of these, 21 appeared to statistically account for part of the link between SES and coronary heart disease. This suggests that social circumstances may be reflected in the body's biology, and that blood protein patterns could be one route through which they influence heart disease risk. This research is observational and the mediation analysis is statistical, so it does not prove that these proteins cause heart disease or that changing them would help. Still, it points to candidate biological pathways that could be explored in future work on how social disadvantage affects cardiovascular health.
Glover L, Gillman M, Green M, O'Brien S, Casanova R, Floyd J, et al.. (2026). Role of Plasma Proteins in the Association Between Socioeconomic Status and Cardiovascular Disease Events: Results From Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine Cohorts.. Journal of the American Heart Association. https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.125.043751