To estimate long-term (e.g., 10-year) patterns or “trajectories” of risk factor change with age within a conventional funding period, the following approach was adopted: Multiple age cohorts would be observed, with starting ages 3 years apart, and at least 4 years of observation for each participant (e.g., Conclusion The concept of a growth study from childhood through adolescence required special consideration of the age range of participants and the planned frequency of follow-up examinations. Housing was primarily single-family units, although some apartments and Design and Methods The Woodlands is a planned community with schools, businesses, healthcare facilities, and amenities designed to attract and retain a predominantly middle- to upper-income resident population. The population of 19,146 in 1985 was 91% Caucasian, 6% Hispanic, 1% black, and 2% other race/ethnicity groups.
In the mid-1980s, a series of school surveys began in the community of The Woodlands TX, some 25 miles north of Houston. 15 Prevention of the risk factors in the population as a whole Development of the Proposal 14 The major risk factors-adverse blood lipid profile, high blood pressure, tobacco use, and diabetes-with their behavioral determinants, including dietary imbalance, physical inactivity, and consequent obesity, are themselves epidemic. The data provide valuable insights into risk factor development and suggest a fresh approach to understanding influences on blood lipids, blood pressure, and left ventricular mass during the period of childhood and adolescence, a period of dynamic change in these risk factors.ĭecreasing the public health impact of coronary heart disease, stroke, and other forms of atherosclerotic and hypertensive diseases is widely recognized as an immense global public health challenge. These trajectories are then related to concurrent measures of multiple indices of body composition and sexual maturation and adjusted for energy intake and physical activity. The mixed-longitudinal design provides trajectories of change with age, for total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglycerides systolic, and fourth-phase and fifth-phase diastolic blood pressure, and left ventricular mass. Overlap in ages at examination among three cohorts (aged 8–12, 11–15, and 14–18 years at baseline) and use of multilevel modeling methods permit analysis of some 5500 observations on each principal variable for the synthetic cohort from ages 8 to 18 years. Data were collected from 1991 to 1995, and study investigators continue data analysis and reporting.
Interviews were conducted at entry and annually on diet, physical activity, and health history of participants and their families.
All resided in The Woodlands or Conroe TX. Growth, body composition, sexual maturation, major CVD risk factors, and cardiac structure and function were monitored every 4 months for up to 4 years among 678 children and adolescents (49.1% girls 20.1% blacks) aged 8, 11, or 14 years at study entry. Project HeartBeat! studied early development of these risk factors as growth processes. Major cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors begin development in childhood and adolescence.