Are there racial differences in risks for first cardiovascular events and noncardiovascular death?
Racial disparities in first CVD incidence are age-dependent and may be better evaluated using competing risks analyses rather than traditional Cox models.
CVD affects blacks at an earlier age than whites; this may be attributable in part to elevated CVD risk factor levels among blacks. Racial disparities in first CVD incidence disappear by older adulthood. Competing risks analyses may yield somewhat different results than traditional Cox models and provide a complementary approach to examining risks for first CVD events.
Feinstein et al. (2012) studied this question.