The Framingham Heart Study (FHS)

Project Period: 9/1/1948 - 5/1/2015
Contact: Dr. Gina Wei

The Framingham Heart Study (FHS) is a long-term, multigenerational study, designed to identify genetic and environmental factors influencing the development of cardiovascular and other diseases. Examination and testing of 5,209 residents of Framingham, Massachusetts, was initiated in 1948 and with approximately 200 members of the original cohort currently alive and under follow-up. An offspring cohort and a third generation cohort were subsequently added, followed more recently by two minority cohorts (Omni Group 1 and Omni Group 2). The project examines the incidence and prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and its risk factors, trends in CVD incidence and its risk factors over time, and family patterns of CVD and risk factors. Other objectives include the estimation of incidence rates of disease, a description of the natural history of CVD, including the sequence of clinical signs and systems that precede the clinically recognizable syndrome, and the consequences and course of clinically manifest disease.

Last Updated May 2011