Rationale and Design of a Multicenter Echocardiographic Study to Assess the Relationship Between Cardiac Structure and Function and Heart Failure Risk in a Biracial Cohort of Community-Dwelling Elderly Persons: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study

Abstract

Heart failure (HF) is an important public health concern particularly among persons over 65 years of age. Women and African Americans are critically understudied populations that carry a sizeable portion of the HF burden. Limited normative and prognostic data exist regarding measures of cardiac structure, diastolic function, and novel measures of systolic deformation in older adults living in the community