Vascular risk factors have been proposed to herald mood declines as people age, contributing to the development of depression in later life. However, because of a dearth of studies that consider the longitudinal course of depressive symptoms, evidence supporting this hypothesis is limited. In two large, population-based samples of mid- and older aged adults, we examined whether vascular risk factors precede changes in depressed mood over more than a decade. Methods: Data came from the Midlife

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... the United States study (MIDUS; N = 7,108; mean age = 46.4 years) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA; N = 9,432; mean age = 65.4 years), which followed participants over 19 and twelve years, respectively. We used longitudinal structural equation (latent growth) models to test whether initial levels and long-term changes of depressed mood differed as a function of baseline vascular risk factors (i.e. hypertension, body mass index, smoking, diabetes) or overall vascular burden (i.e. the presence of multiple riskfactors). Results: Across both samples, people with higher vascular risk, compared with people with lower risk, reported being more depressed. However, there was no consistent evidence that vascular risk factors or overall vascular burden predicted subsequent changes in mood over time. Only smoking was linked to an increased deterioration of mood in MIDUS; however, this finding was not replicated in ELSA.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the associations between vascular risk factors and depressed mood remain largely stable over time. In contrast, our findings provide no support for the hypothesis that vascular risk factors precede differential rates of mood decline.