Our Story
The Framingham Heart Study (FHS) is one of the world's most regarded research studies, starting first with its work on heart disease and expanding to other chronic diseases such as stroke, cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. With over 3,700 articles published in academic journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Nature Genetics, Circulation and the Lancet, FHS now seeks to do more. Fueled by the extraordinary dedication of three generations of participants, Framingham’s expansion into genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics coupled with on-going integration of state-of-the-art technology, reflects its continued pursuit of new and innovative research.
Framingham is credited with much of the earliest findings that smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, and diabetes lead to heart disease. In coining the term "risk factor" in 1961, the study set the foundation for the field of preventive medicine. Today, the study remains a global epicenter for public health research, operating at the intersection of population research, omics, systems biology, and personalized medicine.
The Framingham Heart Study is a project of Boston University and the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.
The Framingham Heart Study is supported by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health and Boston University School of Medicine, under NIH award 75N92019D00031.
