Research
The Section of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology is involved in applied epidemiology in the fields of cardiovascular disease, cancer, nutrition, and the problems of aging, including Alzheimer’s disease. The Section collaborates with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in studies of cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, as well as in studies of pulmonary disease, cancer, osteoporosis, and osteoarthritis. The Section also directs the Framingham Children’s Study, a study of third- and fourth-generation descendants of families involved in the Framingham Study. In addition, the Section collaborates with other medical centers in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Framingham Heart Study; the HyperGEN Family Blood Pressure Project; and the Family Heart Study SCAN project that involves the evaluation of genetic and environmental factors associated, respectively, with coronary disease, hypertension, and coronary artery calcification.
The RURAL (Risk Underlying Rural Areas Longitudinal) Cohort Study aims to address critical gaps in our knowledge of heart and lung disorders in rural counties in the southeastern US. With our mobile research vehicle, we will travel to rural counties to research people’s health. We hope that our research findings will promote the health of rural communities.
The section also provides services through the Center for Clinical Translational Epidemiology and Comparative Effectiveness Research (TEC Center) to provide data infrastructure, methodological expertise and statistical support to clinicians and researchers committed to translating discoveries in basic science research and preclinical studies to trials and studies in humans (translational epidemiology) and comparative effectiveness research, to identify clinical and public health interventions that work best for improving health.
Finally, the section offers the T32 Multidisciplinary Training Program in Cardiovascular Epidemiology, where trainees will focus their training on the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease such as coronary heart disease, stroke, heart failure and other forms of vascular disease during this 2-year training program.