Geography as Disparity: The Shifting Burden of Heart Disease.

The author comments on a study that finds dramatic shift in the geographic pattern of heart disease (HD) mortality in the U.S. over four decades. He examines a substantial shift in the concentration of high-rate counties from the Northeast to the South and enumerates smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and physical inactivity as principal risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (CVD). He also argues that the shift has important implications for the prevention and treatment of HD.