MESA Objectives

To determine characteristics related to progression of subclinical to clinical cardiovascular disease.
To determine characteristics related to progression of subclinical cardiovascular disease.

To assess ethnic, age, and gender differences in subclinical disease prevalence and risk of progression and clinical cardiovascular disease.
To describe the interrelationships of newly identified factors, established risk factors, and subclinical disease, and to determine the incremental predictive value for clinical cardiovascular disease of newly identified factors and subclinical disease measures above that of established risk factors.
To develop population-based methods, suitable for application in future screening and intervention studies, for characterizing the risk of asymptomatic persons.