Summary of Major Findings of the Evans County Cardiovascular Studies

The studies reported in this issue have resulted from an unusual "partnership" between a primary care physician Curtis Hames, MD, and an academic department of epidemiology. The initiative for this collaboration came from Dr. Hames who wished to determine whether certain phenomena he was observing in his practice were occurring throughout the community or were restricted to the types of people who selected him for their physician. To the extent that his practice observations were found to be generalizable, he would then be interested in seeking some explanations. In particular, Hames was impressed with the rarity with which he saw black patients, particularly black men, with any manifestation of coronary heart disease (CHD), despite the fact that levels of blood pressure in many of these patients were markedly elevated. This observation was all the more surprising as coronary disease was a very common manifestation in his white patients. (Evans County,