Table 1:

Predictor variables for the Cardiovascular Disease Population Risk Tool

Variable	Scale	Initial variable specification^*	Variable form, full model^†	Variable form, reduced model^‡
Demographic
Age	Continuous	5 knot spline Valid range: 20–101 (women), 20–102 (men)	Unchanged	Unchanged
Sex	Dichotomous	Stratified: female, male	NA	NA
Health behaviours
Pack-years of smoking^§	Continuous	3 knot spline Valid range: 0–79 (women), 0–109 (men)	Unchanged	Unchanged
Smoking status^§	Categorical	4 categories: Nonsmoker Current smoker Former smoker < 5 yr ago Former smoker ≥ 5 yr ago	Unchanged	Unchanged
Alcohol (no. of drinks in the past wk)^§	Continuous	3 knot spline Valid range: 0–26 (women), 0–53 (men)	Linear (women), 3 knot spline (men)	Unchanged
Former drinker^§	Dichotomous	Yes/no	Unchanged	Excluded (men)
Fruits and vegetables (average daily consumption)^§	Continuous	3 knot spline Valid range: 0–13 (women), 0–12 (men)	Unchanged	Unchanged
Potato (average daily consumption)^§	Continuous	3 knot spline Valid range: 0–2 Linear (women), 3 knot spline (men)	Excluded (women)
Juice (average daily consumption)^§	Continuous	3 knot spline Valid range: 0–5 (women), 0–6 (men)	Linear	Excluded (women)
Leisure physical activity (metabolic equivalent of task [MET], kcal/kg/d)^§	Continuous	3 knot spline Valid range: 0–11 (women), 0–13 (men)	3 knot spline (women), linear (men)	Excluded (men)
General health
Self-perceived stress	Ordinal	5 categories: Not at all stressful Not very stressful A bit stressful Quite a bit stressful Extremely stressful	2 categories Not at all, not very or a bit stressful Quite a bit or extremely stressful	Excluded
Sense of belonging to local community	Ordinal	4 categories: Very strong Somewhat strong Somewhat weak Very weak	4 categories (women), linear (men)	Excluded
Sociodemographic
Ethnicity	Categorical	7 categories: White Black Chinese Aboriginal South Asian, Arab, West Asian Japanese, Korean, Southeast Asian, Filipino Other, multiple origin, unknown, Latin American	2 categories: White Nonwhite	Excluded
Immigrant	Dichotomous	Yes/no	Unchanged	Excluded
% of lifetime in Canada	Continuous	3 knot spline 0–100	Linear	Excluded
Education	Categorical	4 categories: Less than secondary Secondary school graduation Some postsecondary Postsecondary graduation	Unchanged	Unchanged
Neighbourhood social and material deprivation (Pampalon’s deprivation index20)	Ordinal	3 categories: Low (1st or 2nd quintile) High (4th or 5th quintile) Moderate (all others)	Linear	Excluded
Chronic conditions
Diabetes^§	Dichotomous	Yes/no	Unchanged	Unchanged
High blood pressure^§	Dichotomous	Yes/no	Unchanged	Unchanged
Body mass index^§	Continuous	3 knot spline 10–48 (women), 9–44 (men)	Unchanged	Unchanged
Design
Survey year	Ordinal	4 categories 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007	Unchanged	Unchanged

Note: df = degrees of freedom.
↵* df = 61.
↵† df = 48 for women; df = 47 for men.
↵‡ df = 36 for women; df = 37 for men.
↵§ Age interaction included.