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Purpose: To monitor cardiovascular health, in 2022, the American Heart Association (AHA) updated the construct “Life’s Simple 7” (LS7) to “Life’s Essential 8” (LE8). This study aims to analyze the associations and capacity of discrimination of LE8 and LS7 in relation to self-rated health (SRH) and health-related quality of life (HRQoL).

Methods: This study from the Swedish CArdioPulmonary bioImage Study (SCAPIS) included 28 731 Swedish participants, aged 50–64 years. Three different scores were derived from the SF-12 questionnaire: 1-item question SRH (“In general, would you say your health is …?”), mental-HRQoL and physical-HRQoL. Logistic regression, restricted cubic splines, and ROC analysis were used to study the associations between the AHA scores in relation to SRH and HRQoL.

Results: Compared to those with a LE8 score of 80, participants with a LE8 score of 40 were 14.8 times more likely to report poor SRH (OR: 14.8, 95% CI: 13.0–17.0), after adjustments. Moreover, they were more likely to report a poor mental-HRQoL (OR: 4.9, 95% CI: 4.2–5.6) and a poor physical-HRQoL (OR: 8.0, 95% CI: 7.0–9.3). Area under curves for discriminating poor SRH were 0.696 (95% CI: 0.687–0.704), 0.666 (95% CI: 0.657–0.674), and 0.643 (95% CI: 0.634–0.651) for LE8, LS7 (0–14), and LS7 (0–7), respectively, all p values < 0.001 in the DeLong’s tests.

Conclusion: LE8 and LS7 had strong and inverse associations with SRH, mental-HRQoL, and physical-HRQoL, though LE8 had a somewhat higher capacity of discrimination than LS7. The novel LE8, a construct initially conceived to monitor cardiovascular health, also conveys SRH and HRQoL.