The Framingham Heart Study (FHS)

Web site for the cohort:

Publication describing the cohort:

1. Dawber TR, Meadors GF, Moore FE, Jr. Epidemiological approaches to heart disease: the Framingham Study. Am J Public Health Nations Health 1951;41:279-81.
2. Feinleib M, Kannel WB, Garrison RJ, McNamara PM, Castelli WP. The Framingham Offspring Study. Design and preliminary data. Prev Med 1975;4:518-25. Splansky GL, Corey D, Yang Q, et al. The Third Generation Cohort of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Framingham Heart Study: design, recruitment, and initial examination. Am J Epidemiol 2007;165:1328-35.

Description:
The Framingham Heart Study (FHS) is an ongoing, longitudinal, community-based, observational cohort study that was initiated in 1948 to prospectively investigate the risk factors for cardiovascular disease. It comprises three generations of participants: the Original cohort followed since 1948; their Offspring and spouses of the children, followed since 1971; and third generation composed of the children and their spouses from the largest Offspring families, enrolled in 2000 (Gen 3). The Original cohort enrolled 5,209 men and women who comprised two-thirds of the adult population then residing in Framingham, MA and survivors continue to receive biennial examinations. The Offspring cohort of 5,124 participants (including 3,514 biological offspring), have been examined approximately once every 4 years. Gen 3 included 4,095 individuals that have been examined on 2 occasions (between 2002-2005 and 2008-2011). The town of Framingham was primarily composed of individuals of European ancestry at the beginning of the study in 1948. However, racial and ethnic shifts in the Framingham population through time prompted FHS investigators to initiate a study composed of a multi-ethnic sample of individuals of Hispanic, Black and Asian descent. In 1994 the Omni1 Cohort was recruited, including 506 minority residents of Framingham town between the ages of 40-74 years. Another unrelated minority sample of 330 individuals (mean age 45±7years), known as the Omni2 Cohort, was recruited and tested in parallel with Gen 3. Blood samples have been obtained from all study participants at each visit, aliquoted and stored at -80 degrees C. All participants have consented to the use of their samples for research. The VEGF Consortium will use samples and data on at least 3020 subjects from across all 3 generations of FHS participants who have serum VEGF levels measured as well as expression and methylation data and have been assessed longitudinally for CVD risk factors and outcome events. Details of these “-omics” are available at the FHS SABRe CVD website http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/gap/cgi-bin/study.cgi?study_id=phs000363.v10. Briefly at the 8th Offspring examination and the 1st Gen 3 examination, 2608 individuals from the Offspring sample and 4000 persons from the Gen 3 sample had (i) whole blood RNA assayed with the Affymetrix Exon 1.0ST, (ii) DNA methylation using the Illumina Infinium 450K probe and (iii) PAXgene microRNA assayed using the TaqMan qRT-PCR. We estimate that at least 3020 of these individuals will have genetic data (GWAS, exome chip, some with whole exome and whole genome sequencing), will be free of prevalent CVD and will be available for incident CVD analyses.

Types of tissues available:
Serum – Plasma – DNA – RNA