Harvard alumni health study
Encyclopedia
The Harvard alumni health study is a cohort study
focusing on the effect of exercise on coronary artery disease, strokes, diabetes, hypertension
, cancer
, obesity
and mortality
. Including only male, Harvard College
graduates who began their studies between 1916 and 1950 and were still living in 1966, the study began with 21,582 individuals. Data was collected on the lifestyle and health of these men in 1962, 1966, 1977, 1988, and 1993, at which point only 11,894 men remained in the study.
As with all cohort studies, the narrow catchment criteria for participants was both a strength and a weakness: selecting only educated, middle-aged, predominantly white males lent the study greater power to see statistically significant results in that demographic, but left in blind to broader reaching phenomena.
Cohort study
A cohort study or panel study is a form of longitudinal study used in medicine, social science, actuarial science, and ecology. It is an analysis of risk factors and follows a group of people who do not have the disease, and uses correlations to determine the absolute risk of subject contraction...
focusing on the effect of exercise on coronary artery disease, strokes, diabetes, hypertension
Hypertension
Hypertension or high blood pressure is a cardiac chronic medical condition in which the systemic arterial blood pressure is elevated. What that means is that the heart is having to work harder than it should to pump the blood around the body. Blood pressure involves two measurements, systolic and...
, cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
, obesity
Obesity
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems...
and mortality
Mortality rate
Mortality rate is a measure of the number of deaths in a population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit time...
. Including only male, Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
graduates who began their studies between 1916 and 1950 and were still living in 1966, the study began with 21,582 individuals. Data was collected on the lifestyle and health of these men in 1962, 1966, 1977, 1988, and 1993, at which point only 11,894 men remained in the study.
As with all cohort studies, the narrow catchment criteria for participants was both a strength and a weakness: selecting only educated, middle-aged, predominantly white males lent the study greater power to see statistically significant results in that demographic, but left in blind to broader reaching phenomena.