CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 62Historical and modern epidemiology studiesHistory of Science and MedicineHealthcare Systems and Public Health

Profiling risk: the emergence of coronary heart disease epidemiology in the United States (1947–70)

Oppenheimer, Gerald M·2006·International Journal of Epidemiology
DOI 10.1093/ije/dyl014
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

This historical study examines the development of coronary heart disease (CHD) research and its role in the evolution of post-1945 chronic disease epidemiology in the United States. To give the examination greater salience, it compares the pathway represented by CHD epidemiology with that of lung cancer. Historians have paid less attention to the differences between the two, which later merged into what we now call 'risk factor epidemiology'. This study assesses why CHD epidemiology in the post-war period almost uniformly began with cohort studies and primarily stressed clinical variables as putative aetiological factors. It describes how CHD epidemiologists sought to justify the creation of a non-infectious chronic disease epidemiology, a position reinforced by the relative swiftness with which they obtained important results. It also follows the emergence of 'risk factor thinking' within CHD epidemiology. CHD epidemiology critically differed from its lung cancer counterpart in that it identified multiple factors of risk, each producing relatively small effects, rather than a single factor producing a strong and evident outcome. Consequently, it was difficult for CHD epidemiologists to demonstrate causality and to confirm scientifically that reducing risk factors would lower CHD rates. This had significant consequences for primary prevention and public health policy.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1093/ije/dyl014

Cites

109 of 109 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The first major Framingham findings, published in 1957, defined hypertension as systolic blood pressure at least 160/95 mm Hg and found nearly a fourfold higher coronary heart disease incidence per 1000 persons among hypertensive participants.

    “The first major study findings were published in 1957, almost a decade after the initial participant was examined. Defining hypertension as a systolic blood pressure ≥160/95 mmHg, they found a nearly 4 fold increase in coronary heart disease incidence per 1000 persons among hypertensive participants.26”

    From The Framingham Heart Study and the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease: a historical perspective (2014) · cites this paper as [26]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Oppenheimer, G. M.
Affiliations
City University of New York (US)
Corresponding author
Oppenheimer, Gerald M
Venue
International Journal of Epidemiology
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2006-02-15
Volume
35
Issue
3
Pages
720-730
ISSN
  • 0300-5771 (ISSN-L)
  • 1464-3685
DOI
10.1093/ije/dyl014
OpenAlex
W2142549602
Cited by
62
References
109
Citations by year
2025: 1 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 13
FWCI
9.26
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • International Journal of Epidemiology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health (5g13lm007932-02)
  • U.S. National Library of Medicine (1G13LM07932-01)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Historical and modern epidemiology studies
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › History of Science and Medicine
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Healthcare Systems and Public Health
Keywords
history of epidemiology, risk factor epidemiology, cohort studies, chronic disease epidemiology, lung cancer epidemiology, causal inference, primary prevention, public health policy, postwar United States
MeSH terms
Chronic Disease, Coronary Disease, Humans, Lung Neoplasms, Public Health, Risk Factors, United States, Cohort Studies, Uncertainty, History, 20th Century

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review