Lessons from curbing the coronary artery disease epidemic for confronting the impending epidemic of heart failure.

This article describes five decades of epidemiologic research that has contributed to an explosive expansion of knowledge about the causes and evolution of cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular epidemiology has become a basic science of preventive cardiology and has provided vital information about predisposing but modifiable risk factors to public health workers, physicians, scientists, and basic researchers. This research also has stimulated national public health initiatives, global attention to cardiovascular disease prevention,and pharmacologic development of agents to control hypertension and dyslipidemia and controlled trials that demonstrate their efficacy.