Author Description

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States and most other westernized nations. It is well recognized that traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease have limited predictive utility in the identification of new cardiovascular disease cases and outcomes. Thus, investigators have argued that application of a biopsychosocial research paradigm in this field may be of particular utility in understanding cardiovascular disease pathogenesis. Accordingly, a subdiscipline within the field of behavioral medicine – cardiovascular behavioral medicine – examines interrelations among biological, behavioral, psychological, and social factors in cardiovascular health and disease. In 1989, Schneiderman and colleagues published a seminal work entitled "Research Methods in Cardiovascular Behavioral Medicine." Since that time, there has been an exponential increase in the amount and scope of work in this topic area, but no similar edited volume has been undertaken. Here we propose to create a compendium of work in the field of cardiovascular behavioral medicine, the purposes of which are to summarize research in this area, promote multidisciplinary research and clinical practice, and encourage researchers and clinicians to consider all relevant facets of the disease process in their evaluation and study of cardiovascular disease pathogenesis and outcomes. In this volume, we propose several sections. Section I will provide an overview of basic cardiovascular anatomy and physiology, cardiovascular disease classification, and application of the biopsychosocial model to the study of cardiovascular disease. Section II will cover sociodemographic, behavioral, psychosocial, biomedical, and psychophysiological risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Each chapter will offer a discussion of construct definition, measurement issues, and epidemiological evidence for relations to cardiovascular disease. Chapters on biomedica