2010 Articles

Finding the glass half full? Optimism is protective of 10-year incident CHD in a population-based study: The Canadian Nova Scotia Health Survey

Hansen, Jonathan D.; Shimbo, Daichi; Shaffer, Jonathan A.; Hong, Sangbeen; Borda, Tomas; Ventura, Albania; Schwartz, Joseph E.; Harlapur, Manjunath; Davidson, Karina W.

While some convenience studies have found that optimism is protective for the risk of incident coronary heart disease (CHD) events, others have not. Optimism is separate from, but related to positive affect. We examined whether optimism was associated with a lower long-term risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) events in a large, population-based sample, independent of positive affect with 10 years follow-up after adjusting for positive affect.