Cardiovascular Health Study

The Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) is a population-based longitudinal study of coronary heart disease and stroke in adults age 65 years and older funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. A total of 5,201 men and women were recruited from four communities: Forsyth County, North Carolina; Sacramento County, California; Washington County, Maryland; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. An additional 687 African Americans were recruited after the initial baseline survey. The population from the Pittsburgh Field Center was entirely urban, whereas the other three field centers recruited a mixture of urban and rural populations.

Eligible participants were sampled from Medicare eligibility lists in each area. Those eligible included all persons living in the household of each individual sampled from the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) sampling frame who were age 65 years and older at the time of examination, were noninstitutionalized, were expected to remain in the area for the next 3 years, and were able to give informed consent and did not require a proxy respondent at baseline. Potentially eligible individuals who were wheelchair bound in the home at baseline, or who were receiving hospice treatment, radiation therapy, or chemotherapy for cancer, were excluded.

Extensive physical and laboratory evaluations were performed at baseline to identify the presence and severity of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors such as hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and glucose intolerance; subclinical disease such as carotid artery atherosclerosis, left ventricular enlargement, and transient ischemia; and clinically overt CVD. These examinations in the CHS permit evaluation of CVD risk factors in older adults, particularly in groups previously underrepresented in epidemiological studies such as women and the very old. The first of two examination cycles began in June 1989. [Page 97]Periodic interim contacts are schedules to ascertain and verify the incidence of CVD events, the frequency of recurrent events, and the sequellae of CVD.