Behavior and cardiovascular disease: Issues and overview

Despite the fact that there has been a real decline in cardiovascular mortality in recent years (USDHEW, 1979a), the major cardiovascular disorders, including coronary heart disease (CHD), hypertension, and sudden death, still account for one in two deaths in the United States. Because of a confluence of factors, research on cardiovascular disorders is one of the most developed areas of inquiry in the study of behavioral influences on health. First, epidemiologic studies reveal that these diseases are not an inevitable consequence of aging and genetic make-up (Kannel, 1979). Numerous environmental and behavioral variables are involved in their etiology and pathogenesis. Second, considerable progress has been made in moving beyond the establishing of correlations between psychological variables and cardiovascular disorders, to explore basic mechanisms linking behavioral processes to particular manifestations of disease.