Much of the information about heart disease risk has focused on individual factors, including family health history and individual health behavior. While this information is very useful, individual factors do not fully explain differences in rates of heart disease among certain groups of people. For example, groups with less access to certain resources (e.g. educational, economic, healthy foods) experience higher risk for heart disease. Similarly, African Americans, as a group, experience higher risk of heart disease than do White Americans, and rates of heart disease for both White and Black Americans are higher than those reported for Mexican Americans.

There is increasing interest in understanding how social inequalities contribute to differences in the social and physical environments in which people live, and ultimately, affect heart disease risk. We expect the HEP findings will provide additional insights about the link between social and physical environments and risk for heart disease and will provide information that can be used to improve heart health in Detroit.