Nurses' Health Study (Cardiovascular Component)

BACKGROUND:

The Nurses' Health Study began in 1976, when 121,700 female registered nurses living in eleven states completed a mailed questionnaire that included items about their medical history, diet, and other risk factors for cancer. The National Cancer Institute funded the first three years of the study and subsequent years on data pertaining to cancer. In 1980 the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute began funding the cardiovascular portion of the study. Follow-up questionnaires have been administered every two years subsequently. Blood samples were collected on a subsample of the women between 1989-1990 and stored for analysis of germline DNA and circulating biomarkers.

The cardiovascular component is funded through May 2029.

DESIGN NARRATIVE:

In 1976, 121,700 nurses ages 30-55 completed and returned the initial Nurses' Health Study questionnaire and comprise the Nurses' Health Study cohort. The cohort has been followed by means of biennial mailed questionnaires. A total of 109,413 participants responded to the 1978 questionnaire. In addition, 400 women who replied in 1976 stated that they did not wish to continue in the study and 390 women died. In 1980, the first major dietary assessment was added to the questionnaire. In the 1978-1980 interval, there were 624 deaths, 300 women declined further participation, approximately 99,000 completed the full questionnaire including the dietary questionnaire, and another 4,000 completed an abbreviated questionnaire, for a total of about 103,000 responses. In 1982, the overall response was 101,174. The approximately 19,000 living non-respondents were followed by telephone, yielding 71 percent of the non-respondents. Thus, at the end of 1982, current information was available on 116,150 or 95.4 percent of the original cohort. A subset of 32,826 women provided blood samples between 1989 and 1990. Genotyping on 1,186 women (382 with coronary heart disease and 804 matched controls) was performed using Affymetrix 6.0 platform.