JHS: Filling a Gap in the Study of CVD and African-Americans

Why do African-Americans have a significantly higher rate of cardiovascular disease (CVD) than do whites? This question is being investigated in the Jackson Heart Study (JHS). With the intention of developing prevention strategies, the JHS researchers plan to have an answer soon by studying CVD risk factors in African-Americans.
    The 3-year study, which includes examinations of 6,500 African-American men and women between the ages of 35 and 84, began in the fall of 2000. When complete, the JHS will be the largest investigation of CVD undertaken in an African-American population.
    The JHS is an expansion of the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, which focused on CVD among 15,792 men and women between the ages of 45 and 64 over a 12-year span (1987–1999). But whereas the ARIC study incorporated four geographically diverse communities (suburban Minneapolis; Washington County, Maryland; Forsyth County, North Carolina; and Jackson, Mississippi), the JHS researchers have narrowed their focus to the African-American population of Jackson. The rationale cited for this particular focus includes both the lack of population-based data on CVD in African-Americans and the fact that CVD death rates in Mississippi—particularly among African-Americans—are the highest in the nation.
    Many participants in the ARIC study who fit the criteria of the JHS, as well as a sample of randomly selected residents and volunteers from the Jackson metropolitan area, will be enrolled in the study. Of note, approximately 400 families will be among the participants—in the hope that familial and genetic relationships with CVD can be established. Investigators are collecting data through a series of questionnaires, physical assessments, and laboratory measurements.
    A single-site, prospective, epidemiologic trial, the JHS objectives include:

	determining the roles of cardiovascular risk factors (obesity, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, blood pressure) in the development and progression of CVD, with an emphasis on hypertension-related disease
	determining the roles of sociocultural factors (economic status, stress, racism, discrimination) in the development of CVD and associated risk factors
	defining the role of familial or hereditary factors, specific genetic variants, and environmental influences in the development of CVD and associated risk factors
	identifying novel risk factors for the development of CVD