Women and health. A new challenge to public health research.

While a large part of research on risk factors in coronary heart disease (CHD) so far was concentrated on men this paper, from a public health perspective assigns high priority to the study of CHD in women. Starting from a short description of the Swedish situation, some major current insights into the complexities of interaction between biological and psychosocial variables in explaining CHD are discussed. The author shows how research on women could specifically advance our current understanding. This is exemplified by summarizing preliminary findings from a large case control study on women below age 65 who were hospitalized with an acute diagnosis of CHD during the past three years in the greater Stockholm area.