The Study of Health Assessment and Risk in Ethnic groups (SHARE): rationale and design. The SHARE Investigators.

The Study of Health Assessment and Risk in Ethnic groups (SHARE) is a study to determine the risk factors for atherosclerosis among three ethnic populations in Canada. Three hundred and thirty South Asian Canadian, 320 Chinese Canadian and 320 European Canadian men and women between 35 and 75 years of age are being randomly sampled from communities in Hamilton and Toronto, Ontario and Edmonton, Alberta for assessment of conventional (i.e., smoking, dyslipidemia, diabetes and hypertension) and emerging (i.e., candidate genes for atherosclerosis, homocysteine, fibrinolytic parameters, neurohormones, glucose intolerance, markers of infection, socioeconomic status, psychosocial status and diet) cardiovascular disease risk factors. Subclinical atherosclerosis is measured by quantitative B-mode ultrasonography of the carotid arteries, and other objective measures of vascular disease are a 12-lead electrocardiogram, a two-dimensional echocardiogram, ankle to arm blood pressure ratio and urine microalbumin concentration. The relationship between the conventional and emerging risk factors, and atherosclerosis, vascular disease and markers of end-organ damage will be evaluated between and within ethnic groups.