ABSTRACTIntroduction: Epidemiological studies have demonstrated that abdominal obesity is the most important risk factor and the one that best explains the occurrence of a first acute myocardial infarction in Latin American countries. Objective: To determine the risk of cardiovascular disease by measuring the abdominal circumference in Doctor's Office 22 of "Aleida Fernández Chardiet” Teaching Polyclinic, La Lisa municipality, Havana, Cuba, in 2016.Material and Methods: An observational descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in people older than 17 years old. The universe of study was composed of 538 persons. Distributions of frequencies, percentage calculations, and the Chi-square test were used. Results: With regard to the value of abdominal circumference, 42,9% of people presented a high risk of cardiovascular disease, which predominated in the male sex (48,0%). Only 16,5% of diabetic patients presented a low risk. The 50,6% of patients with arterial hypertension, and the 45,4% of smokers presented a high risk. Conclusions: Regarding the evaluation of the abdominal circumference, a high risk of cardiovascular disease was observed in the majority of population studied, especially in the male sex, diabetics, hypertensive patients, and smokers. A statistically significant relationship was observed in patients with risk of cardiovascular disease due to abdominal obesity and age, sex, Diabetes Mellitus, and arterial hypertension.Keywords: Epidemiology, risk factors, abdominal circumference, cardiovascular disease, primary health care.</p
