This Heart Health Month, researchers at The University of Tulsa received an Institutional Research Enhancement Award from the American Heart Association (AHA) to support their project titled “Cardiovascular Health and Future Risk of Cardiovascular Events: The Tulsa Heart Study.” According to the principal investigator, Eric Wickel, this investigation “seeks to understand why cardiovascular disease is more pervasive in some parts of the country – such as Oklahoma, which leads the nation in heart disease-related mortality – and among certain groups of people.”
In order to carry out this research, Wickel, the John C. Oxley Chair of Kinesiology and Rehabilitative Sciences, is joined by fellow UTulsa faculty Jeffrey Alderman, Cassy Abbott Eng, and Angela Dotson. Also taking part is Stacie Merritt, director of the Ascension St. John Clinical Research Institute in Tulsa.
“I warmly congratulate Dr. Wickel and his colleagues on receiving this AHA award,” said Dr. Susan Pepin, dean of UTulsa’s Oxley College of Health & Natural Sciences. “This work is particularly impactful as it addresses the social determinants of health. The new knowledge their research generates will undoubtedly lead to better health outcomes for many people in Oklahoma and beyond.”
Wickel and his co-researchers will receive nearly $200,000 over two years and will focus their lens on adults between 30 and 59 years. “It’s a common assumption that cardiovascular problems affect only older people, but the reality is that some young adults have high long-term risk for heart problems,” remarked Wickel.
The team plans to work with Ascension St. John to identify patients who meet the study’s criteria and are willing to grant permission to access their health records. This information will provide critical data, including location, blood pressure, body size, and glucose and lipid levels. In addition, participants will be asked to answer questions about the food they consume, how long they sleep, and physical activities, and any social risk factors, such as the availability of food, financial and housing insecurity, and living alone.
By combining patients’ health records with their survey responses, Wickel and his colleagues will arrive at individualized heart-health scores. “We will also use this information to predict short- and long-term risk for heart problems for each person in our study,” he explained. “Based on our preliminary research, we expect to see high, moderate, and low heart-health scores in young adults, as well as to discover some with low short-term risk but high long-term risk. It will then be a case of analyzing heart health and risk scores by location and level of social challenge.”
Results of The Tulsa Heart Study will be shared with participants so they can learn about their cardiovascular health status and future risk of cardiovascular events. The study will also generate baseline data for following people over time to evaluate changes in their health. At the state level, researchers anticipate their findings will help guide Department of Health planning aimed at reducing heart disease.
“And for our students who envision careers in medicine or allied health professions,” Wickel noted, “this will be an outstanding opportunity to engage in leading-edge, socially impactful research.”
This work is supported by American Heart Association Grant #25AIREA1365312 (https://doi.org/10.58275/AHA.25AIREA1365312.pc.gr.226919) / Eric Wickel / 2025.